Woolworths UK to be Reborn Online
After years of famously selling very little to a very small population, Woolworths in the UK closed the doors of its British bricks and mortar outlets just after Christmas. Many of their empty stores have now been bought as administrators couldn't find anyone willing to keep them open and trading.
Mere weeks later, however, the name is about to be resurrected as an online brand. Woolworths' new owner, Shop Direct Group, has several online retailers, including Great Universal and Marshall Ward.
Although the BBC points to retail consultant Teresa Wickham's view that the online retail landscape is now a "very competitive marketplace," she also believes the timing is ideal, "while the brand is still fresh in people's minds."
Mark Newton-Jones, chief executive of Shop Direct, is confident about the future, according to the BBC.
"This is great news and we are confident that Woolworths, as an online brand, will once again prosper and quite rightly stay at the heart of British retailing...It would have been a tragedy should the name have disappeared," he said. "It is an iconic name."
It isn't yet clear which product lines will be available but children's clothing brand, Ladybird, is fairly certain. The new venture is scheduled for a summer launch but a website has already opened for customers to register the sort of products they would like to see.
Ms. Wickham observed that many who shopped at the High Street stores were elderly and would not automatically visit the new website but added, "People are generally getting more used to buying online, and the online clothing sector is predicted to grow over the coming year."
The Times reported that Shop Direct is closing a call center and cutting head office staff but wants to focus on the internet over its more traditional catalog business.
Woolworths opened its first store in Liverpool in 1909 as FW Woolworths, a subsidiary of its U.S. parent. Known affectionately as "Woolies" in Britain, the store was known for years as a major value retailer. Woolworths in the UK had outlasted its U.S. parent, where the final Woolworths stores were closed more than a decade ago.
One precedent for reincarnation was set when Montgomery Ward in the US, forced into bankruptcy in 1997, returned to life as a catalog and e-commerce business under the ownership of Direct Marketing Services Inc. (DMSI) as discussed here back in 2007. (Wards Comes Back - As a Catalog - RetailWire)
Discussion question: Do you see online retailing as a viable option to re-launch failed brick and mortar retailers?