88 RETAIL ONLY HIGH STREET UPDATE Hawkin’s Bazaar is first 2012 casualty
Challenging trading conditions blamed for administration HMV and Clintons also earmarked as vulnerable... by Samantha Loveday
MORE WELL-KNOWN retailers will struggle to get through 2012, according to a new report released just days after the owner of Hawkin’s Bazaar went into administration. Corporate health monitoring specialist, Company Watch, has highlighted the retailers it thinks will be the winners and losers throughout 2012 – using the latest published financial statements and other public domain data for a number of well- known retail groups – likening them to football teams competing in different leagues. Supermarkets Morrisons and Sainsbury’s have been placed in the ‘Premier League’ along with John Lewis, while Tesco, Marks & Spencer and WH Smith are in the
COUNTER INSURGENT
Dispatches from the retail front line...
WELL ANOTHER year gone by and once again retailers manage to shoot
themselves in the foot by telling consumers they’re being ripped off if they buy toys at full price. 2011 was the most confusing
year for offers I can remember. If we can’t follow them, how the heck can the consumer? There have been many debates about how retailers promote offers. Inflating prices to offer discounts, misleading signage in-store, and running promotions in the national press and TV campaigns only to have enough stock to last five minutes past opening morning. Any manufacturer that funds price cuts seriously needs to look at what it is doing. Sainsbury’s didn’t know if it wanted to be a retailer or a wholesaler for internet traders
FEBRUARY 2012
and eBayers. Looking at the way they were loading the Lego in trolleys, it was so obvious it wasn’t normal consumers buying the half price sale stock. As for Logo Game, I cancelled all my outstanding orders as the consumer now expected to pay £15 and thought I was
This year the holy grail of
the toy industry – the action figure – was under attack from other sources. This time the attack was from the video games industry. With many toy retailers not involved in video games, it was an opportunity missed by many. Skylanders
Consumers don’t baulk at paying £2.50 for a coffee, but
£5 on a toy for little Jonny is far too excessive.
ripping them off by making a three per cent margin. Toys are, in the main,
exceptional value for money, but all the time, messages being sent to consumers are that we rip them off. Consumers don’t baulk at paying £2.50 for a coffee, but £5 on a toy for little Jonny is far too excessive.
was popular from the off, but it did seem daft selling a £7 figure for a £60 game, but I guess that is how the video game industry works; sell the hardware and make the money on the software and accessories. However little seemed to be done by Activision to get the product into independent toy
retailers. You would have thought they could nip next door at Stockley Park and see if they can do anything with Hasbro to service the industry. Anyway Activision has decided to put the price up for the New Year, so good luck with that. Will we go into Toy Fair in a positive mood? That will
depend on how much the consumer cut back on spending over Christmas. Will we be looking at great
new product or will there, in the back of our minds, always be the thought that someone, somewhere will destroy a line and price point before it even gets going?
season now behind them, it is difficult to see how the more financially fragile retailers will make it through the barren retail winter,” said Nick Hood, head of external affairs at Company Watch. “Although the vast majority of retailers going under will be SMEs, we can expect further casualties among the high profile companies trading on public equity markets.” Meanwhile, Tobar Group blamed
‘Championship’ listing. HMV and Clinton Cards, however, have been placed in the ‘Lower Leagues’.
“With so many negative pressures bearing down on consumer spending and the peak Christmas trading
the ‘exceptionally challenging’ trading conditions for the collapse of Hawkin’s Bazaar and children’s accessories retailer, Letterbox. At time of press, the company was continuing to be run as a going concern by the administrator. The 55 pop-up Hawkin’s Bazaar stores opened over Christmas are being closed, as planned.
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