Wellworth It! in Ledbury (8 Oct 2011)

Dorchester’s famous Wellworths may have had to change its name to Wellchester at Shop Direct’s behest, but a store in the Herefordshire town of Ledbury is still evoking the memory of Woolworths in both name and visual identity.

Ledbury’s Woolworths (store #696) opened at 6-8 The Homend on 9 July 1937, and went on to serve the historic market town – famous for its timber-framed buildings – for more than 70 years until the chain’s 2008 collapse. Its replacement, Wellworth It!, opened in March last year, and – like any good ‘son of Woolies’ store – stocks a familiar and well-priced mix of homewares, garden tools, cleaning products, stationery, greetings cards, toys and the like.

Wellworth It! in Ledbury (8 Oct 2011)

What’s most interesting about the store, however, is its branding. Where previous attempts to reinvent the Woolies formula have played on the name but not the imagery – be it the blue and orange of Claire Robertson’s Wellworths, the purple of the now-defunct Alworths chain, or the black and yellow of the short-lived Well Worth It (no relation) in Wallsend – Wellworth It!’s red frontage is unashamedly ‘inspired’ by that of Woolworths. Indeed, the fascia even uses the old Woolies font (below).

Pre-collapse Woolworths logo (top) and Shop Direct's version since 2009 (bottom)

Fortunately, Shop Direct has adopted a slightly different logo (above) since reinventing Woolworths online, as Woolworths.co.uk, in 2009; otherwise, you suspect that the home shopping giant would have had something to say about happenings in Ledbury.

With the Woolworths connection so apparent in the store’s current frontage, it’s fitting that the building itself is hard to mistake for anything else. Though the property features the five-bayed symmetrical frontage that typifies Woolworths’ stores of the period, the architectural detail – including the addition of quoins (decorative cornerstones) and window pediments – is a little more ornate than usual. Indeed, the design is almost identical to that of Sidmouth, below (#729): opened about a year after Ledbury, and a store that I visited last month but have yet to blog about.

Former Woolworths (now M&Co), Sidmouth (7 Sep 2011)

At Sidmouth, the pediment of the central window extends above the parapet, giving the frontage a sense of being properly finished off. A similar feature is visible at Ledbury, too, in the c1970s postcards below, but must at some point subsequently have been levelled off when the parapet was replaced. A minor niggle, perhaps, but something that studying architecture at university for six years makes hard not to notice!

Postcard of Ledbury Woolworths in the 1970s (?)

Postcard of Ledbury Woolworths, sent in 1975

Once inside Wellworth It!, however, the store feels surprisingly unlike a former Woolworths, and has much more of the character of an independent hardware store, rather like Proper Job on Clevedon’s old Woolies site (#992). The carpet throughout gives a different feel to the traditional Woolworths wooden floor – which is still in place at Wellchester and many of the other taken-over stores – while the storeroom and warehouse at the rear of the shop has been transformed into additional selling space. When I visited, garden furniture seemed to be giving way to Christmas ranges.

On the downside, I’d like Wellworth It! to do something about the ‘unwelcoming signs’ that are, as I noted last year, so rightly frowned upon by The Retail Doctor, Bob Phibbs.

Everywhere I went in the store, I felt like I was being told off – ‘do not open the packaging’, ‘all breakages must be paid for’, or occasionally both messages at the same time. Perhaps most bizarrely, the ramp leading down to the former stockroom area had a large notice along the lines of ‘this ramp is strictly for use by wheelchairs only’; woe betide any mother with a pushchair that tried to use it instead.

In a small town like Ledbury, there’s no doubt that Wellworth It! performs a valuable role in selling a bit of everything, and ensuring that the local community doesn’t have to travel out of town for everyday items. However, if Wellworth It! is to evoke the warmth and personality of the old Woolies brand – and not just the visual imagery – then it could do worse than toning down the negative messaging.

New and old logos

Last week’s news that the celebrated Wellworths store, in Dorchester, is being forced to change its name by Shop Direct reignites one of the most interesting threads to emerge from Woolworths’ collapse – the battle for the good bits of Woolies’ legacy.

The gist of this latest development is that Shop Direct – who, you’ll remember, bought the Woolworths brand from the administrators following the retailer’s collapse – was apparently content for Wellworths to keep its current name, provided that the business curtailed any expansion plans.

According to Wellworths’ statement, Shop Direct “initially supported the opening of the former Woolworths store in Dorchester as Wellworths, but then sought an agreement which would place limits on the growth of the business under the Wellworths name.”

It continues: “Regretfully, rather than accept those limits, Wellworths have decided to replace the Wellworths name with Wellchester over the course of the next two years.”

Wellworths store in Dorchester. Photograph by Nigel Mykura

Inevitably, the ‘well worth the money’ tagline will have to go too, with trade mark details on the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) website suggesting that it will be replaced with (the admittedly rather bland) ‘something for everyone.’ If one is being critical, it’s also fair to ask whether Wellchester – a name so obviously associated with the retailer’s place of origin – is the best brand for rolling out to other parts of the country. Still, the fact that the new name can still be abbreviated to ‘Wellies’ was surely part of the thinking behind it.

Screenshot of Shop Direct's Woolworths.co.uk site (2 Nov 2010)

No-one disputes that Shop Direct, like any other business, is entitled to protect its brand – but at what price? Time will tell whether the benefits of its actions outweigh what seems to be the overwhelmingly negative reaction from both the media and the public.

Writing on Twitter, for example, the editor of industry bible Retail Week remarked that “Shop Direct are idiots for making Wellworths change its name”, describing the move as “astonishingly petty.” His colleague, George MacDonald, agreed, branding the move “heavy-handed.”

Other Twitterers, such as dorset_flickr, voiced similar views, remarking how it was “interesting that such [a] big company feels so threatened by [a] name that isn’t [the] same – obviously Wellworths could go places.” Comments about Shop Direct’s actions on the Dorset Echo website have been similarly uncharitable, with the words “petty” and “heavy-handed” consistently used.

All this reaction matters, because these are the same people who will determine the success – or not – of Shop Direct’s own Woolworths.co.uk operation. Merely owning the Woolies name isn’t enough – Shop Direct needs to understand the heritage of the brand that it’s acquired, and to harness the goodwill that used to be associated with that name. Without that magic, the business is just Littlewoods with a different label.

Alworths fascia

Perhaps the nub of the issue is that Wellworths and the other fledgling ‘son of Woolies’ enterprises, such as Alworths and Smallworths, seem to have understand what people most liked about Woolies, and have embraced those cherished values of friendliness, warmth and convenience on the high street – values, indeed, that are challenging to replicate in an entirely online operation, however much pic ‘n’ mix you’re able to send out by City Link.

Instead of Shop Direct fighting battles for Woolies’ legacy – and Alworths MD, Andy Latham, is understandably coy about what the Wellworths decision might mean for his own chain – it could do worse than learn from the successes of its not-quite-namesakes.

Thank you to Nigel Mykura for the use of the photograph of Wellworths, which is © Copyright Nigel Mykura and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Licence.

Shop Direct's Woolworths.co.uk

Just a quick post this evening, but I wanted to flag up a well-written and interesting article by Kiran Stacey in yesterday’s Financial Times, entitled “The fight to be Woolworths’ heir”.

The piece covers some of the same themes as my own blog posts about Wellworths, Alworths and Shop Direct’s Woolworths brand, but gives some new and interesting insights into the operation of each business through talking to Wellworths’ Claire Robertson, Alworths’ Andy Latham and Shop Direct’s Matthew Hardcastle.

Alworths fascia

Notably, the article tackles the issue of the three retailers’ similar names, and – contrary to what has been reported previously – suggests that Shop Direct is no more happy with Wellworths than it is with Alworths:

We’re not happy with what Alworths is doing. They are trading on the old Woolworths name and brand. Meanwhile, Wellworths is trying to be Woolworths in all but name, and we are not very happy with that situation either.

Certainly, it looks like the tension between Shop Direct and the other ‘new Woolies’ is not going to vanish anytime soon.

Alworths' website

Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that Alworths has launched its website at http://www.alworths.com/ in the past few days. The colour scheme is, arguably, a little on the psychedelic side, but the content and overall impression is very good, conveying a distinctive brand personality that is bright, friendly, fun, local, and family-oriented.

The ‘Rate your visit’ form and the opportunity to nominate an Alworths staff member for a ‘Star Service Award’ are also really nice touches. Similarly, though there are no clues as to where Alworths’ future stores will be, visitors to the site are invited to ‘nominate a location’, to help Alworths achieves its goal of opening “20+ stores” during 2010, and its ultimate expansion “towards a chain of 200 stores”.

I’ve been really impressed with Alworths’ marketing and PR efforts to date. The company seems to have been quite adept at celebrating the qualities that people most liked about Woolworths – such as the service, value and range – while avoiding the traps that ultimately contributed to Woolies’ demise, and creating a personality that is fresh and new.

I wish the business well, and look forward to seeing how it develops over the coming months. Up here in the North East, perhaps I could nominate Chester-le-Street as somewhere that “a variety chain with stores at the heart of the High Street” would be likely to do well?

Wellworths store in Dorchester. Photograph by Nigel Mykura

I was interested to read on This is Money a few days ago that Claire Robertson of Wellworths fame is apparently in talks with “unnamed venture capitalists” (are they ever not unnamed?) over funding for expansion. The article claims that the Dorchester-based enterprise is hoping to open up three more former Woolies stores before the end of 2009.

This is good news if it’s true – towns across the south of England seem to have been clamouring for their very own Wellies – but like any new business, Wellworths will need to be careful not to grow too quickly and beyond its means. After all, the rapid expansion and equally rapid demise of DVD retailer Silverscreen is a reminder of what can go wrong.

In the meantime, one useful thing that Wellworths could and should do is to give itself a proper online presence. The company cannily made sure that it registered the domain names wellworths.com and wellworths.co.uk before anybody else could, but these currently point only to a holding page. Given the public and media interest in the business, this seems like a wasted opportunity.

Wellworths.co.uk holding page

Of course it would be unrealistic for Wellies to actually trade online, but it would be great to have a simple but decent quality website that provides details of what the store sells and what it’s opening hours are. It would also be a good move to have a blog or news section, giving Claire and her staff an opportunity to update on new developments and promotions instore.

Wellworths’ launch was a masterclass in effective use of PR, but it’s important not to let things slip as the business develops – the interest and goodwill is still there, so why not capitalise on it?

Incidentally, the main topic of the article mentioning Wellworths’ reported expansion is the departure of Shop Direct’s group trading director, David Inglis. Shop Direct, of course, has recently relaunched Littlewoods Direct as Very, and is also behind the recent high profile relaunch of Woolworths as an Internet-only retailer. The article, perhaps unfairly, tries to make some link between Inglis leaving and “speculation that the [Woolworths.co.uk] business was in difficulty” – as far as I’m aware there’s no evidence that the new Woolworths operation is struggling, but it will of course be fascinating to see how it fares over the coming months.

With Wellies on the high street and the new Woolies online, it’s easy to forget about another proposed reincarnation – former Woolworths commercial director Tony Page’s plan to “relaunch the company in all but name” with a potentially 200-strong chain of as-yet-unnamed variety stores. Page’s plans seem to have gone a little quiet of late, but his latest Twitter post, from 13 July, suggests that they are still ongoing – “lots of empty property to fill, and jobs to create”, he writes, with the promise that “We’re working hard on it”. Let’s wait and see if Page is as good as his word.

Thank you to Nigel Mykura for the use of the photograph of Wellworths, which is © Copyright Nigel Mykura and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Licence.