More House of Fraser Woes

Yes I think it’s game over for them too, which is a shame. However, a lot of these big companies are often greedy and care little about their customers getting value for money (I’m sure the shareholders and senior execs have had generous bonuses over the years) - so if the new owner Mike Ashley is hell bent in creating another Harrods, then good luck to him, as I’ve no intention of shopping there

yes it's very sad

yes it is very sad, and I am worried that it does sound like it's completely lost its way. We can only hope that the person who takes it over tries their best to sort the issues out - we don't need more dead spaces on our high street

hspexy Absolutely! We are lucky that our local highstreet doesn't have that many dead spaces, there are only 2 and these only closed down recently and this was due to the shops not doing well enough to survive. It has been bought by the guy who owns Sports Direct, so no idea if it will ever get back to where it needs to be. I went to look online for some ties for my husband and you can't access the website to order anything. There are a lot of issues that need to be sorted out.

MrsCraig yes, from what I have read, there is a lot of legal stuff being hashed out, so their online store is not operating, and their brand suppliers are owed a lot of money, so they're taking a lot of the unsold stock back. Haven't a clue what the stores currently look like, but whatever is going on, it's certainly not a way to attract customers at all. I hope they do sort things out soon

hspexy I saw on the news the other day that a lot of the companies that supply them are owed loads of money, so if they are taking stock back then the stores must be pretty empty. The new owners are apparently not legally responsible for paying back the debt to the stockists, so no idea how that will be resolved!

MrsCraig it does sound like it's in a right mess - it's such a shame as you never think of big companies being in such a financial state if they're all over the place - perhaps the fact they spread themselves so thinly was one of their problems? I think they tried to branch out in China and the Far East, but that never took off, so money certainly went down the drain in that respect

hspexy You expect big companies to be financially stable but you never know what is going on under the surface. Maybe they need to downsize and then build themselves back up again.

I know what you mean. I know here in London the rates are extortionate, so local, small business owners cannot afford to run a business - the only ones that can afford the rent and rates are the big, faceless organisation that have already monopolised. It's so sad.

Yes they also charge for click and collect if you don’t spend above a threshold, which definitely puts a lot of customers off (I’ve certainly stopped myself buying because I didn’t want to pay the additional fees)