Grays Inn Road entrance to former High Holborn Woolworths (5 Apr 2011)

Sometimes I wish I was able to clone my blogging self, in order to have more time to write about all the topics that I’d love to cover.

For example, following on from my first-day reactions to the Retail London Conference, there are still quite a few things from the second day of speakers – including ex-Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy – that I want to address in the coming days.

Meanwhile, the news of Beales’ transformational purchase of 19 Westgate department stores from Anglia Co-op (ARCS), which broke while I was at the conference, is also definitely worth a blog, and has major implications for several North East towns: Redcar and Bishop Auckland, where Beales is acquiring the existing Westgate stores; Hartlepool and Blyth, where ARCS is keeping its Westgate stores – for now – as part of a rump department store estate; and even Hexham, where Beales already owns Robbs. More from me on all that, I hope, early next week.

Howard Saunders at the Retail London Conference

On the topic of Retail London, I was interested to see Howard Saunders from Echochamber kick off his speech on day two – about the retail implications of the global recession – with a photo of a closed-down Woolworths, joking that it was the first thing visitors saw when they came to London.

His remark raised a laugh, of course, and there’s little doubt that images of shuttered Woolworths stores have become one of the most poignant and symbolic illustrations of the current economic slowdown.

However, despite being the Woolies nerd that I am, I held my tongue and refrained from pointing out that (1) even by August last year, a reported 81% of ex-Woolies sites in Greater London had found new occupants and that (2) unless visitors were planning on venturing out of central London, they’d be hard-pressed to find a recently-closed Woolworths anyway. Still, there’s no need to let the facts get in the way of an amusing anecdote…

Former Woolworths (now Waitrose) in Edgware Road (14 May 2010)

As you would expect, I used my spare time while in London to track down some more of those long-gone Central London Woolies sites. Regular readers may recall that in May last year, I snapped the former Woolworths in Edgware Road (#2031, now Waitrose), which managed to survive until June 2008, following it up in September with visits to the former Woolies in Victoria (#800, now Argos) and Kensington High Street (#162, now Uniqlo), both of which closed in the early 1980s.

Most recently, in November, I returned to Kensington and tracked down the original store #162, further along the street, as well as capturing the former Oxford Street flagship (#161, now Uniqlo), the old Woolies in Brompton Road, near Harrods (#391, now Boots), and what I hoped was the long-closed store at High Holborn (#173).

Grays Inn Road entrance to former High Holborn Woolworths (5 Apr 2011)

My first task this time was to return to High Holborn, to follow up reader Gabriella Coscia’s feedback after my initial visit. While Gabriella was able to confirm that I had indeed identified the correct property, she revealed that the building had been reclad rather than “pulled down” as 100thBirthday.co.uk had claimed. Furthermore, she pointed out that I’d missed the old side entrance around the corner in Grays Inn Road, with Argos now occupying a part of the building that hadn’t been externally remodelled since Woolworths’ departure.

Sure enough, the Argos section of the building has ‘former Woolies’ written all over it, with its distinctive black stall riser and white tiled steps – quite a surprising survival for a store that closed as Woolworths in 1984. While there, I also crossed over to the opposite side of the road to get a better shot of the reclad High Holborn frontage.

Former High Holborn Woolworths (5 Apr 2011)

According to Gabriella, Woolies occupied the portion of the building that now houses Dorothy Perkins (previously Richards), Holland & Barrett (previously Clinton Cards) and Thorntons, as well as obviously the Argos section round the corner. Reed and Robert Dyas, however, were apparently trading from their locations while Woolworths was still open, meaning that the Woolies store must have been basically L-shaped at ground-floor level.

Former Woolworths (?) (now Paperchase), Tottenham Court Road (6 Apr 2011)

Continuing on to Tottenham Court Road, we have an ex-Woolies whose precise location – or even existence – seems to be a pretty hazy memory, judging from some of the online discussions about it.

Thanks to the trusty New Bond, we know that there definitely was a Woolies store in Tottenham Court Road, as it’s referred to in my copy of the December 1958 issue. It was store #175 – suggesting a November 1924 opening – and appears as a line in the ‘Changes and Appointments’ section of the magazine, listing a Mr R W Parratt, who was the manager of #175, as having moved to become manager of store #602 in Norbury.

The actual location is harder to pin down. At least one source suggests that it was the large property now occupied by a Paperchase flagship at 213-215 Tottenham Court Road, and this seems plausible looking at the building. Its overall scale and symmetry, and the double-height shop frontage, are certainly redolent of other central London Woolworths branches, such as those in Oxford Street and Kensington High Street.

Former Woolworths (?) (now Paperchase), Tottenham Court Road (6 Apr 2011)

The property’s page on Camden Council’s planning website also has links to some interesting historical documents, showing an application for major alterations in 1978, as well as a contemporaneous application for new Paperchase signage.

It’s not clear whether or not Paperchase was already in situ at that time, but a 1970s closure of the Woolies store would account for the hazy recollections, and fits with the types of locations that were being closed down at that time. Hopefully, as before, publishing this blog will elicit further memories that help us get to the bottom of the mystery.

Alworths fascia

It seems that the ‘son of Woolworths’ chain Alworths has two new stores in the offing. Fife Today is reporting that Alworths will be opening up in the former Woolworths store in Cupar, while jobs are already being advertised for a new store in Forfar, in Angus, that is due to open in June.

If confirmed, these will be Alworths’ eighth and ninth stores in total, and its first outside the south of England. [UPDATE, 1 June 2010: The Scotsman has reported today that the Cupar store will open on 16 June and the Forfar shop on 18 June, with plans for another eight Alworths stores in Scotland].

Screenshot of site advertising jobs at Alworths Forfar (31 May 2010)

As blogged about in July, Cupar’s old Woolies, in Crossgate, had been taken over by Glasgow-based value retailer Pound-Mart, alongside other former Woolworths sites in Rutherglen, Forfar and Bathgate. However, the Pound-Mart shops in both Cupar and Forfar closed down at the end of April, after just eight months of trading.

As far as I’m aware (it’s not entirely clear, given that the Pound-Mart website still lists them as open), the closures of the Forfar and Cupar stores leaves Pound-Mart with a three-strong store portfolio in Scotland – centred upon its flagship store in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street – but, according to the website, with continued plans to expand during 2010 and 2011. 

Pound-Mart's Cupar store, prior to closure. Photograph courtesy of Pound-Mart

Alworths, meanwhile, has been steadily pursuing its own growth plans, taking over former Woolies sites in Didcot, Amersham, Evesham, Warminster, Wokingham, Cosham and, most recently, New Milton in Hampshire. To date, however, only two shops have opened in 2010, suggesting that Alworths’ stated ambition to open 22 shops in the 12 months to November 2010 may have been over-optimistic. 

Still, adopting a sensible approach to growth is often no bad thing for a retailer – the collapse of businesses like Vergo Retail and Silverscreen shows what can happen when a retail chain expands too rapidly, taking on new stores before it’s properly got to grips with the existing ones. It will be interesting to see whether Alworths’ first appearance in Scotland signals a shift in pace in its goal to become a truly national, small-town variety store retailer. 

As one of the more interesting retail stories to emerge from the debris of Woolworths’ collapse, I’ve blogged previously about the opening of Alworths stores in Amersham and Cosham, and the launch of its website. I hadn’t, however, had the chance to visit an Alworths store myself, given that there are none yet here in the North East, and none close to anywhere else that I’d been travelling. When I was in London in a couple of weekends ago, I therefore took the opportunity to hop on the tube to Amersham in Buckinghamshire, to check out an Alworths store for myself. 

Sycamore Road in Amersham (14 May 2010)

I’d only once been to Buckinghamshire before, and never to Amersham. Upon arriving at the station, it struck me as an attractive and quite well-to-do market town, typical of those that encircle Greater London. The shops are a good mixture of independents and chains, including high street staples such as M&S Simply Food (in the former Budgens), Costa, Greggs, Waterstone’s, Iceland, and the very first branch of the now 50-strong toy shop chain, The Entertainer.

There are also branches of some chains that are well-known to southern shoppers but not seen up here in the north, such as the home shop Cargo and the ironmongers Robert Dyas. The latter, I noted, featured the retailer’s new logo and store design, certainly conveying a fresher and more modern image than the old look, spotted earlier that same day in Harrow.

Robert Dyas in Amersham (14 May 2010)

Old-style Robert Dyas in Harrow (14 May 2010)

Many of Amersham’s stores are clustered along the main thoroughfares of Hill Avenue and Sycamore Road, the latter proving quite a challenge to cross given the volume of traffic passing through the town. Alworths sits in a good location in the middle of Sycamore Road, sharing its building with a new WHSmith store that only opened in April, in a unit that previously housed Halfords.

WHSmith and Alworths in Amersham (14 May 2010)

I’ve no idea if WHSmith’s arrival was influenced by Alworths already taking over the Woolies unit next door, but it’s certainly a positive thing for the town to have two decent retailers occupying a building that was completely empty for the latter part of 2009.

So, what about Alworths then? The first thing to note is that Amersham does seem like a good choice of location, with no other department or variety store in the town. Depending upon the product being sought, WHSmith, Robert Dyas and The Entertainer seem likely to offer the main competition.

Alworths in Amersham (14 May 2010)

Externally, the distinctive purple and blue fascia was easy to spot, while the window display was pleasingly simple. Clutter outside the store was also kept to a minimum, restricted to a display of plants and pots and a freestanding National Lottery sign.

Though there was a steady flow of of schoolchildren and others popping into Alworths, my initial reaction was that the store didn’t seem very busy for a Friday lunchtime. On the other hand, when I visited Superdrug and Julian Graves a little later I was the only customer in both those stores, suggesting that the town in general was having a quiet spell. (Many thanks, incidentally, to Rory in Julian Graves, who was able to offer some useful suggestions of where I might find lunch in Amersham. The Boot & Slipper pub proved to be a good choice!)

Upon entering Alworths, my overwhelming sensation was one of familiarity. Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking that you had stepped into a Woolworths, given the very similar look and feel. At the front of the shop, an impressive (and inevitable) pick and mix selection and a decent range of CDs and DVDs are among the first items that a customer sees.

On key criteria, I felt that the store performed well – it was well stocked, prices seemed reasonable, and the staff were friendly and smart in appearance (the latter something that didn’t always seem to be the case in old Woolworths stores, perhaps due in part to the unflattering red uniforms).

I did feel, however, that there were a couple of important areas for improvement. The first related to navigation around the store, which was more difficult than I expected. Though there was signage (for ‘Toys’, ‘Home’, etc.) around the edge of the store, I felt that the gondola units in the middle of the shopfloor would also benefit from some signage, either attached to the units or suspended from the ceiling above.

My second criticism concerned the slightly tired and dowdy quality of the store interior. This had clearly been retained from the old Woolworths store – hence the quick turnaround in getting the store opened last November. In doing that, however, Alworths didn’t really feel like a shop that had only been open six months. The ceiling, for instance, bore all the signs of having many years of hanging signs and Christmas decorations attached to it, while the floor was patched in several places with yellow and black gaffer tape.

Like many old Woolworths stores, the narrow and deep shape of the unit also reinforces the slightly gloomy feel. Inevitably, this is more difficult to do anything about, but it would make a real positive impact if Alworths was able to get more light into the back of the shop, either by bringing in extra daylight through the street frontage (currently largely obscured by screens), or by using artificial light creatively.

Assuming that Alworths is indeed a success – as I hope it will be – investing in these kinds of improvements will greatly enhance the customer experience, and will reassure shoppers that their local store is planning on being around for the long term. As the Alworths chain expands further – and particularly if it starts taking over shops that were not formerly Woolworths – it will be interesting to see how it develops its own, more confident store interior style.

Clas Ohlson sign

With so many old Woolworths sites being taken over by familiar high street names and pound shops, it’s nice when the new arrival is something a little more interesting. So I was pleased to read that the Swedish “modern hardware brand” Clas Ohlson is going to be opening up in the former Woolies in Kingston upon Thames, and is also looking to occupy the old Woolworths site in Reading.

If you’ve never heard of Clas Ohlson, you can be forgiven. Established by Mr Clas Ohlson in 1918, the company has grown to over 100 stores across Sweden, Norway and Finland. However, its presence in the UK goes back only to November last year, when it opened its first British store in Croydon’s Whitgift Centre (a unit previously split between Books etc. and a standalone George store), followed by a second, in Manchester’s Arndale Centre, in April.

Clas Ohlson's existing Croydon store

In the middle of a recession, some might say that it’s a brave move for any company to make its first ventures into the UK market – particularly given the fate that has recently befallen other homeware retailers such as ILVA and The Pier. To be fair though, Clas Ohlson’s positioning seems to be more as a funkier, Scandinavian twist on Wilkinson or Robert Dyas, mixed with a Lakeland-rivalling array of useful (or merely baffling) gadgets such as plastic drain cleaners, battery testers, painted Dalecarlian horses, and scrubbing gloves for root vegetables.

Certainly, Clas Ohlson’s product range is eclectic and difficult to pigeonhole, with categories such as art supplies, clocks, fishing equipment, stationery and toys sitting alongside an extensive range of household, garden, DIY and electrical products.

Cannily, Clas Ohlson’s assortment also seems to tapping into the growing trend among credit-crunch-savvy Brits for mending rather than replacing, suggesting that:

“British people are just as interested as us in the Nordic region in fixing various things in their homes. Our broad range of products that solve small, practical problems in everyday life satisfies these interests and needs.”

With only Croydon and Manchester to choose from, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit either of Clas Ohlson’s UK shops. However, it looks and sounds very much like the type of store in which I could happily spend some considerable time, with lots of interesting, practical items presented within a store environment that is typically Scandinavian – clean, modern, and with a distinctive and engaging personality.

During the 2009/10 financial year, the company apparently plans to open four to eight stores in the UK, which raises the question of where those additional new stores might be. Might Newcastle be on the target list?

Clas Ohlson is certainly the type of store that would bring some more interest to Newcastle city centre, and with the completion of the Eldon Square extension next spring there will be a fair amount of existing retail space being freed up. Realistically though, the city centre doesn’t have very many units available that are big enough or in the right place.

Eldon Square’s new St Andrew’s Way, anchored by Debenhams and New Look, will offer the quality, modern space that Clas Ohlson would be looking for, but seems fairly full up already^{[broken link removed]} - mostly, it must be said, with relocations from the older parts of Eldon Square (more of that, perhaps, in a future post). The premises that New Look will be freeing up (the former WHSmith store in Sidgate) are over two levels and are about the right size, but suffer from being at the gloomiest and seemingly least visited end of Eldon Square. So, no good there.

Elsewhere in the city centre, something must surely happen eventually to the wonderful former Co-op department store building in Newgate Street, particularly now that it has become a prime location directly opposite the entrance to the new Debenhams. With five floors to fill, however, it’s unlikely to suit Clas Ohlson – or any of the other big names currently missing from Newcastle, such as Zara – unless the building gets carved up between several retailers.

The empty Co-op department store in Newcastle

The unit previously occupied by The Pier in the attractive Eldon Garden shopping centre might also be an option. Across two floors, it’s probably just about big enough, and would attract those gadget-hungry shoppers who already visit the nearby Lakeland shop. On the downside, Eldon Garden’s rather peripheral location and seemingly high turnover of stores may not offer the best environment for long term success.

Rather, I would put my money on the ideal location for Clas Ohlson being the old Zavvi store in Monument Mall. As I observed in a blog post just over a year ago, Monument Mall seems to have been struggling of late, with the unfortunate, but unavoidable, loss of Zavvi following on from the departure of Boots, Benetton and JJB Sports.

With so many closures, you can perhaps excuse the floor plan on the Monument Mall website^{[broken link removed]} for suggesting that the shopping centre still houses all these shops, along with a ’Virgin Megastore’. (Seriously, though – what on earth is going on when a shopping centre’s official website features a mall guide that is two years out of date? Truly terrible PR.)

Given this backdrop, Monument Mall would surely welcome the arrival of a strong anchor store, while the three-storey Zavvi unit would give Clas Ohlson all the space it needs along with a prominent frontage on Northumberland Street, Newcastle’s prime shopping thoroughfare.

So, Clas Ohlson – how about it?