Why we shouldn’t care about MFI and Woolworth’s unsightly death
Having just read the news that MFI has ‘ceased trading’, it got me thinking. What do the businesses going under have in common?
The Woolworth’s in my town was always a bit depressing, it didn’t serve a definitive purpose other than being the last port of call when other retailers had been exhausted. Apart from the mismatch of products, quality was always an issue, to get such ridiculously low prices there needed to be a compromise and this came in the form of tacky chinese imports. Many seem to have taken some sentimental affiliation with the company, as if they were a british institution embodying fine craftsmanship. Indeed in it’s early years, the chain was largely respectable, selling good quality haberdashery items, but since then it has transformed into a shadow of it’s former image, priding itself on being the leading supplier of pick ‘n’ mix in the UK.
There is no reason for Woolies to be in your heart, unless you are are heading for a cardiac arrest. Among a few items that i own from this great institution is a large fan which appears from my wardrobe every summer. Put yourself in the shoes of Woolworth’s head of fan design, a colleague comes over and asks ‘Shouldn’t we place a better cover in front of our new metal fan blade?’, there is only one answer, but Woolworths picked another causing my hand to gush blood everywhere. This was a disaster waiting to happen, but did i take further action? Of course not, i’m British, fetch me the Savlon. I Digress.
Perhaps these guys should take lessons from the more successful shopping chains out there, Boots for example have made a successful foray into diversification, offering lunch items along with Hair Loss products and a ridiculous array of feminine hygiene products. Their success has come from part-diversification as they have not lost their main customer base through creating a sustainable combination of product lines. Woolworths has unfortunately suffered from an indeterminate customer base making it difficult to target certain customers effectively, let’s also not forget that the markup on these cheap exports is much less than industry average, further reflected in the disappointing reductions in their final sales.
MFI on the other hand had a clear business plan, one could sum it up with the phrase ’sell Kitchen’s and that’. On a separate note, i was slightly disappointed that the Cretin, Paul Lister from the series ‘The Real Monarch of the Glen’ had not become insolvent, his incessant ramblings about bringing back the ‘real’ animals to the highlands made me cringe. MFI had the plan, but as was the case with Woolworths it lacked the quality of which we all strive for in the typical middle class suburban home.
Before you get bored with this article, consider the implications for the other competitors in the retail sector, as the crap gets rooted out from the High Street (I personally would like to condemn the Broadmarsh shopping centre in Nottingham), the products on offer to us should flourish with quality and reasonable pricing as the big chains battle it out to stay solvent or… they could all go under and i will end up shopping in Lidl. I personally plan to take advantage of the former scenario and further laden myself with debt. So in essence go out and grab some bargains, David Cameron did just that and got some lovely half price booty!