Whilst not exhaustive it’s a bity of a long post dedicated to the memory of a much loved brand.
Famous for it’s pick and mix and Ladybird clothing range, many readers will remember buying records and looking at the top 75 singles chart displayed in it’s impressive record departments to see what was going to be on Top Of The Pops that week.
Summary
Woolworths stores (Woolies, as we Brits used to call them) were officially part of Woolworths Group PLC, a listed British company that also owned other companies such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK and book and resource distributor Bertram Books.
The British branch of the F.W. Woolworth Company (founded Pennsylvania USA) was founded by Frank Woolworth on 5th November 1909 in Liverpool.
The first store was 25 – 25A Church Street and 8 Williamson Street in the centre of Liverpool (the street addresses of the different entrances). It opened on 5th November 1909 with a performance by a full orchestra, circus acts and fireworks.
The company went from strength to strength reaching a peak of 1,141 branches in the late 1960’s. From then until the US parent company sold out in 1982, a number of branches were closed and sold, at thetime of the sale there were around 1000 branches remaining.
In 1982, the British division of Woolworths was acquired by Paternoster Stores Ltd, the forerunner of Kingfisher plc.
Woolworths Group plc was formed by the demerger of Kingfisher’s general merchandise business and began trading as a listed company on the London Stock Exchange on 28th August 2003, using the symbol WLW.
Spin Offs
Woolworths tried the large out-of-town store format in the 1960s with it’s Woolco stores.
The venture was not a great success . Whilst some of the Woolco stores were closed, the majority were sold to the Dee Corporation in the early 1980’s who reopened them as Gateway hypermarkets, which later were taken over by ASDA.
A similar idea was tried in the late 1990’s with Big W large out of town stores. Another miss closures began in 2005.
Woolies Brands We loved
Winfield
Perhaps a less well remembered name. The Winfield brand was launched in 1963 continuing until the 1980’s. Winfield goods included: household cleaners, groceries, kitchenware, perfumes, even fishing tackle!
Chad Valley
Many readers will remember this brand and may even have a few items stashed away in the loft!
Chad Valley was launched in 1991 to create an own label range of merchandise.
The brand name, which had been in existence since 1860, and used on a range of toys and games suitable for children under 8 years old.
After Woolwoth’s collapse Home Retail Group, then the parent company of Argos and Homebase purchased the brand for £5 million on 20 January 2009. Chad Valley first appeared exclusively in the Autumn/Winter 2009 Argos catalogue.
It’s still going today.
Ladybird
Ladybird was a brand of children’s wear for children aged 0–10 years which was sold exclusively in Woolworths stores.
Before the collapse of the Woolworths chain it was ranked third overall in the childrenswear market, with a market share of 5%. Woolworths purchased rights to the Ladybird brand in 1984, purchasing it outright from it’s parent company Coats Viyella in 2001.
Ladybird has a history which dates back to a trading partnership that began in 1934 between the original owners Adolf Pasold &Son and Woolworths.
Another brand still going. On 1st February 2009, Shop Direct Group purchased the brand and whole rights from the administrators.
It too is still going today.
Worth It!
Woolworths launched the WorthIt! brand as a value range (all shops had them) in 2007.
The first advertising campaign for the brand aired on 15 June 2007 and introduced the characters of Wooly the sheep and Worth the sheepdog.
Further advertising campaigns featured celebrities. The brand covered a wide variety of products including confectionery, electricals, alcohol, jewellery, perfumes and clothing.
Where Did They Go?
By 2008 Woolworths had 819 stores. In September the same year the world entered into a severe financial crisis. Markets in which Woolworths had thrived i.e. physical copies of music shrank.
On 19th November 2008 The Times newspaper reported that the chain’s retail business was a target for restructuring specialist Hilco UK, who would buy the retail arm for a nominal £1.
The deal was rejected by the group’s banks and Woolworths and it’s subsidiary Entertainment UK went into administration. A closing-down sale started on 11th December, 2008.
Woolworths stores began to disappear from the high street on 27th December 2008, with the final stores closing their doors on 6th January 2009.
Afterwards
As we saw when we looked at brands a little bit of Woolies is still with us in their old brands. However what happened next?
The Woolworths brand and domain was bought by Shop Direct Group on 2nd February 2009. The company announced it would relaunch Woolworths as an online retail store.
The website was launched on 26th June 2009. It was entirely independent of the former Woolworths Group. Sadly the site closed in June 2015. On 13th October the same year the new company finally dissolved and the website went defunct.
Those Rumours
In April 2017, multiple news sources reported that Woolworths may possibly be re-opening, nearly nine years since it closed, when former director Tony Page expressed interest in acquiring the Woolworths name from Shop Direct. Sa
Sadly Woolworths is no longer with us apart rom those memories.
Commercial Break