Woolworths Group
Encyclopedia
Woolworths Group plc was a listed British company that owned the high-street
High Street
High Street, or the High Street, is a metonym for the generic name of the primary business street of towns or cities, especially in the United Kingdom. It is usually a focal point for shops and retailers in city centres, and is most often used in reference to retailing...

 retail chain, Woolworths, as well as other brands such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK
Entertainment UK
Entertainment UK Limited was a retail supply and distribution company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Woolworths Group plc. The company, along with Woolworths plc, entered administration with Deloitte & Touche on 28 November 2008...

 and book and resource distributor Bertram Books
Bertram books
Bertram Books is the UK’s leading book wholesaler having grown from a family business to a global organisation employing over of 400 staff. A division of Smiths News Plc, the UK’s largest news and magazine distributor, Bertrams is a three times winner of the British Book Award for Supply Chain...

. The Woolworths store chain, which had more than 800 stores at its peak, was the main enterprise of the group, selling many goods and having its own LadyBird
Ladybird (clothing)
Ladybird is a brand of clothing for children aged 0–13 years. Having been purchased in January 2009 by Shop Direct from the administrators of former long time owner/retailer Woolworths Group, Ladybird is ranked third overall in the childrenswear market, with an increasing market share of 5%...

 children's clothing ranges, Chad Valley
Chad Valley
Chad Valley is a long-established brand of toys in the United Kingdom owned by Home Retail Group. The company has its roots in a printing business established by Anthony Bunn Johnson in Birmingham in the early 19th century...

 toys and the WorthIt! value ranges. The chain was the UK's leading supplier of Candyking
Candyking
Candyking is a Swedish company that markets pick and mix confectionery in Finland, Norway, Sweden, the UK and Ireland.- History :...

 "pick 'n' mix
Pick 'n' mix
Pick 'n' mix is a common method used to sell various small items. It is most often used to sell confectionery, whereby small sweets are displayed in tubs or bins...

" sweets. It was also sometimes referred to as "Woolies" by the UK media and the general public.

On 26 November 2008, the trading of shares in Woolworths Group plc was suspended and the Woolworths and Entertainment UK subsidiaries entered administration
Administration (insolvency)
As a legal concept, administration is a procedure under the insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions. It functions as a rescue mechanism for insolvent entities and allows them to carry on running their business. The process – an alternative to liquidation – is often known as going...

. Woolworths Group plc also entered administration on 27 January 2009. The administrators Deloitte & Touche closed all 807 Woolworths stores between 27 December 2008 and 6 January 2009 resulting in 27,000 job losses.

On 2 February 2009 it was announced that the Shop Direct Group had purchased the Woolworths
Woolworths.co.uk
Woolworths.co.uk is an online retail company owned by Shop Direct Group, formed in 2009, after the demise of the high street Woolworths stores. The online store opened on 25 June 2009.- Stores in Britain :...

 and Ladybird names and these would survive as a brand within the internet based shopping company.

Inauguration

The British branch of the originally Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

-founded Woolworths stores
F. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...

, F W Woolworth & Co, Ltd was founded by Frank Woolworth in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, England on 6 November 1909 primarily due to Frank Woolworth's ancestry linking to Woolley
Woolley, Cambridgeshire
Woolley is a village in Barham and Woolley civil parish, part of the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire, England....

, Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

 — Frank himself claiming he had traced his ancestry through the Founding Fathers of the district to a small farm in middle-England. When Frank eventually travelled to England in 1890, he docked in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 and travelled by train to Stoke on Trent for the purchase of china and glassware for Woolworth's ranges, but also noted his love of England in his diary and his aspirations for bringing the Woolworth name to England;


When at a Stoke on Trent railway station, Frank Woolworth met a young freight clerk, William Lawrence Stephenson who impressed Woolworth with his "can-do attitude" and was invited several years later at the time of conception for the British "F. W. Woolworth & Co. Ltd", to meet with Frank Woolworth again, who dispatched a carriage and invitation to his hotel room in London. When Stephenson arrived to meet with Woolworth, he was offered the job as director of the new company, which he accepted.

Internal concerns with British stores

After the idea for the creation of British stores, Frank Woolworth had offered invitations to store managers in the United States to open up stores in the UK and had only received offers to take positions at the time of his illness in March 1909 from Fred Woolworth of the Sixth Avenue
Sixth Avenue (Manhattan)
Sixth Avenue – officially Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown"...

 and Samuel Balfour of the 14th Street
14th Street (Manhattan)
14th Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street rivals the size of some of the well-known avenues of the city and is an important business location....

 stores in New York City. After these initial offers, Byron Miller, a superintendent in a Boston store, also offered his assistance and set sail with the other volunteers on the Steamer, Kaiserin Auguste Victoria
RMS Empress of Scotland (1906)
RMS Empress of Scotland was the later name of an ocean liner built in 1905-1906 by Vulcan AG shipyard in Stettin for the Hamburg America Line. The ship was launched as the SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria; she regularly sailed between Hamburg and New York until the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914...

 on 29 May 1909 for England from Hoboken.

Although Frank Woolworth himself expected other members of staff to admire the volunteers in establishing FW Woolworth & Co in Britain, vice president and general manager of FW Woolworth & Co, Carson C. Peck had reservations with enlisting staff members to travel to Britain, questioning whether Woolworth had indeed created the new business adventure following a dream, or due to his dissatisfaction with the current condition of the American branch.

Peck also asked those who were willing to volunteer to reconsider their decision, claiming that those who had volunteered were unaware of the uncertainty and risks involved and that some were only tentatively willing to engage in Woolworth's new endeavour: His concerns mainly entered on the fact that the majority of the managers who followed the decision did so out of loyalty to Woolworth, and that moving such a valuable resource already established in the United States to what was a financially-unproven "Little Infant" in the UK would have a detrimental effect upon the "Bread and Butter" of the Company.

Inauguration of British stores

Despite reservations such as Peck's, the decision to launch stores in the United Kingdom went ahead as previously planned by Woolworth. He considered several locations for the first stores, together with future possible sites. The chosen location for the first store was 25 - 25A, Church Street and 8, Williamson Street Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 (the street addresses of the different entrances). It opened on 5 November 1909 with a performance by a full orchestra, circus acts and fireworks.

As a means of adherence to American trading tradition, only viewing of items was allowed on the first day of the shop's opening. This included guests being given complimentary tea while being entertained by a traditional brass band in the refreshment room. The event was reported positively by the local newspaper, the Liverpool Courier, which praised the decor of the stores along with the value and range of items on sale.

Despite local press praise, the British national newspaper The Daily Mail likened Frank Woolworth to Phineas Taylor Barnum
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....

 and claimed that the store location had been decided as part of a contingency plan in the event of failure so as to facilitate escape from any financial liability. Despite these reservations, the store proved to be a success; large queues outside and low priced 3d (1.25p) and 6d (2.5p) items leading to it being almost stripped bare of goods before the end of the first day of trading and being attributed to mass purchased mass-produced foreign and local goods.

During World War I

At the onset of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, FW Woolworth & Co. had 40 stores located both in Great Britain and in Ireland located in most major cities - from which a total of 57 staff including store managers had enlisted; the majority of whom did not return after the end of the war in 1918. Despite American staff again offering their services to the Woolworths branches in Britain, remaining staff increased their efforts to cope with the lack of staff members throughout the war with several staff members being promoted to managerial positions.

Stores in the United States, which were then stocking ranges also present in British stores were dependent upon European manufacturers which had adopted newer production methods than their American counterparts.

1918 - 1982

After World War I, the company continued to expand with the opening of further branches. By 1923 there were 130 branches, and William Lawrence Stephenson (1880–1963) became managing director. He implemented a strategy of major expansion, with the company buying or building freehold properties. Many of the stores had distinctive faience
Glazed architectural terra-cotta
Glazed architectural terra-cotta is a ceramic masonry building material popular in the United States from the late 19th century until the 1930s, and still one of the most common building materials found in U.S. urban environments...

 tiled art deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 frontages. The expansion was funded entirely out of earnings and without any borrowing or further capitalisation. The 400th branch, at Southport, Lancashire, opened on 12 July 1930, and at the time of floating on the stock exchange in 1931, there were 444 branches.

Expansion was effectively suspended between 1940 and 1950, due to World War II and post-war restrictions, but then resumed. The 800th branch, at Wilton Road, Victoria, London, opened in September 1953. On 22 May 1958, the 1,000th branch opened at Boundary Road, Portslade, Sussex. The peak of 1,141 branches was reached in the late 1960s. From then until the US parent sold out in 1982, a number of branches were closed and sold, and at the time that ownership shifted to the UK, there were about 1,000 branches.

Post-split from parent company

In 1982, the British Woolworths was acquired by Paternoster Stores Ltd, the forerunner of Kingfisher plc
Kingfisher plc
Kingfisher plc is a multinational retailing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest home improvement retailer in Europe and the third-largest in the world...

. 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
London Stock Exchange
The London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...

 on 28 August 2001, using the symbol WLW.

During the 1980s, management rationalised merchandise lines into clearly defined categories: entertainment, home, kids (toys and clothing) and confectionery. During this time many Woolworths branches were downsized. Older branches in major cities were sometimes almost as large as the major department stores nearby. For instance in 1987, Woolworths left their five floor branch on Briggate
Briggate
Briggate is one of the pedestrianised principal shopping streets in central Leeds, England. Most of Leeds' department stores are on Briggate, including the Harvey Nichols branch. It is home to a number of major high street retailers as well as banks, restaurants and cafes. Recently there have been...

 in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

 which they had occupied since 1913 (now occupied by House of Fraser
House of Fraser
House of Fraser is a British department store group with over 60 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891 it was known as Fraser & Sons. The company grew steadily during the early 20th century, but after the Second...

) and kept only their smaller single level branch in the Merrion Centre in an area of the city centre
Leeds City Centre
Leeds city centre is the central business district of Leeds, England. It is within the Leeds Central parliamentary constituency, represented by Hilary Benn as MP since a by-election in 1999...

 which generally saw a lesser footfall, of shoppers who were generally on a lower budget.

In the late 1990s, the management extended the Woolworths brand into other retail formats and alternative channels to accelerate growth by taking advantage of changing retail trends. Some larger format stores were opened under the Big W brand, similar to Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...

 in the US. Although initially successful, the format ultimately failed to catch on; the original plan had relied upon leveraging the involvement of other Kingfisher group retailers, but following the demerger this was no longer possible. In 2004, Woolworths sold off some Big W store sites to other retailers, including Asda
Asda
Asda Stores Ltd is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, general merchandise, toys and financial services. It also has a mobile telephone network, , Asda Mobile...

 and Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...

. The gross internal floor area of the remaining sites was reduced to an optimum trading size of around 40,000 to 50000 square feet (4,645.2 m²). Following this, they were rebranded as Woolworths Out of Town stores.

Woolworths had previously tried the large out of town store or hypermarket
Hypermarket
In commerce, a hypermarket is a superstore combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full groceries lines and general merchandise...

 format in the 1960s with the Woolco stores. While some of these stores were closed, the majority were sold to the Dee Corporation in the early 1980s and re-opened as Gateway or Carrefour hypermarkets. Today some old Woolco stores are still standing, such as the Asda store in Thornaby-on-Tees.

Cafes

Many Woolworths stores had cafes in them in the early days. However, as the years went on, and many larger stores were either closed or downscaled, less stores had cafes in them. When the stores finally ceased trading in 2008/9, only around 10% of the stores had cafes in them. These were usually located at the back of the stores or, when a store had a second sales floor, they were located either in the basement or upstairs on the first floor. They sold the usual range of hot and cold drinks, with hot food available, including breakfasts and lunch-time meals. Stores with cafes in them included Coventry, Paignton, Gloucester, Worcester, Plymouth, Leigh, Wrexham, Leamington Spa, Maidstone and Hounslow.

Republic of Ireland

Woolworths had some stores in the Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

 which closed in 1984. They were based in large towns and cites in the state. In August 1996, market research was undertaken by Woolworths' Belfast District Office, which investigated opportunities to re-enter the Republic of Ireland market. In a project commissioned by the then Northern Ireland District Manager Bruce Strang, a total of 32 potential locations were identified that could support a Woolworths store. However, the project did not proceed beyond the market research phase.

Recent history

The newly independent Woolworths faced severe competitive and financial pressures. The market for physical copies of music, one of Woolworths main money spinners, slowed in the early 21st century; specialist music chains such as Our Price
Our Price
Our Price was a chain of record stores in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland from 1972 until 2004. Originally founded in 1972 by Gary Nesbitt, Edward Stollins and Mike Isaacs, early stores were branded "The Tape Revolution" and concentrated on the then-new compact cassette format.The name...

 collapsed. The major supermarket chains expanded into many of Woolworths product areas, and fast expanding Wilkinson
Wilkinson (shop)
Wilkinson or Wilko is a British high-street discount chain with over 300 stores, selling primarily homewares and household goods.Founded in 1930 Wilkinson Cash Stores by James Kemsey Wilkinson, the company has remained largely in the hands of the founding family since...

 challenged it directly on the high street.

Woolworths did not generally follow the trend started in the 1980s of opening stores at out-of-town relocations. It did indeed open a store at the new Merry Hill Shopping Centre
Merry Hill Shopping Centre
Westfield Merry Hill is a shopping centre in Brierley Hill near Dudley, West Midlands, England. It was developed between 1985 and 1990, with several expansion and renovation projects taking place since. The original developers and owners were Richardson Developments but the Centre has had a number...

 in 1989, but this closed within a few years due to disappointing trade.

In an attempt to raise the groups corporate profile, under the chairmanship of Gerald Corbett
Gerald Corbett
Gerald Corbett is a businessman in the United Kingdom. Since 2005 he has been Chairman of SSL International plc and Britvic plc. Britvic is one of the two leading soft drinks companies in Britain whose major brands include Robinsons, Tango, Pepsi, Fruit Shoot and J20...

, Woolworths sponsored a show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2004. Designed by a group of graduate students from Pickard School of Garden Design, including Catherine Gamble, Bella Montgomery, Darryl Moore and Rob Whitehead, the contemporary-formal style garden was awarded a silver medal.

In Summer 2006 the business launched an in-store collection service for items ordered on their website or in-store, to complement the already established in-store ordering system. In late September 2006, the "Big Red Book" was launched. This was designed to be a direct competitor of the Argos
Argos (retailer)
Argos is the largest general-goods retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland with over 800 stores. It is unique amongst major retailers in the UK in that it is a catalogue merchant...

 catalogue. Big Red Books 2 and 3 followed in March and October 2007 respectively.

In the years before 2008 the brand had moved into the entertainment and electronics aspects of retail after its acquisition of the company Entertainment UK, and expanded its chains by converting existing stores into larger "20x20" stores found in larger high-street locations for larger product ranges and smaller "10x10" stores aimed at meeting everyday shopping requirements. "Out-of-town" stores, formerly known as "Big W" were set up further away from towns and stocked the standard Woolworth lines and other items that are not offered in high-street locations. , there were 819 stores in the United Kingdom.

On 12 August 2008, Woolworths Group announced the appointment of Steve Johnson, former Chief executive officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 of Focus DIY, to the post of Woolworths Chief Executive. He replaced Trevor Bish Jones, who had left during the summer.

In September 2008, Woolworths scrapped its interim dividend after it announced a pre-tax loss of £99.7m for the six months to 2 August. Also in September, Steve Johnson, chief executive, outlined a possible turnaround plan to sell 120 stores, axe a quarter of its products, reduce web operations and cut jobs. During the same month The Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

 noted that Woolworths' chairman, Richard North, had rejected an indicative offer tabled by Iceland founder Malcolm Walker to buy the group's 815 stores.

At that time, the retailer's largest shareholder was Iranian property developer Ardeshir Naghshineh, with a 10.2% stake. A consortium led by Icelandic investor Baugur, called Unity owned a 10% stake in Woolworths. In October 2008 Sir Alan Sugar, founder of electronics firm Amstrad
Amstrad
Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes....

, increased his stake in Woolworths to around 4%. Theo Paphitis
Theo Paphitis
Theodorus "Theo" Paphitis is a retail magnate and British entrepreneur of Greek Cypriot origin. He made the majority of his fortune in the retail sector, and is best known to the general public for his appearances on the BBC business programme Dragons' Den and as former chairman of Millwall...

, owner of stationery retailer Ryman
Ryman
Ryman is the largest British stationery retailer, historically based in London, now based in its £100m headquarters in Crewe, Cheshire.-Formation:...

, also stated his interest in the company.

Administration

From September 2008 the world entered into a severe financial crisis with decreasing availability of credit
Credit (finance)
Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...

 and reduced consumer spending.

On 19 November 2008, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 reported that the Woolworths' retail business was a target for restructuring specialist Hilco, who would buy the retail arm for a nominal £1; this was confirmed the same day. This deal would have left Woolworths Group with its profitable distribution and publishing businesses and a reduced debt load.

The group's banks, GMAC and Burdale
Bank of Ireland
The Bank of Ireland is a commercial bank operation in Ireland, which is one of the 'Big Four' in both parts of the island.Historically the premier banking organisation in Ireland, the Bank occupies a unique position in Irish banking history...

, rejected the deal and recalled their loans, forcing the group to place the retail business and Entertainment UK into administration
Administration (insolvency)
As a legal concept, administration is a procedure under the insolvency laws of a number of common law jurisdictions. It functions as a rescue mechanism for insolvent entities and allows them to carry on running their business. The process – an alternative to liquidation – is often known as going...

. On 26 November 2008, the trading of shares in Woolworths Group plc was suspended. Neville Kahn, Dan Butters and Nick Dargan of Deloitte
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited , commonly referred to as Deloitte, is one of the Big Four accountancy firms along with PricewaterhouseCoopers , Ernst & Young, and KPMG....

 LLP were appointed joint administrators. When the company entered administration it had a debt of £385 million. The administrators announced that they were aiming to keep the company as a going concern over the crucial Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 period, although analysts feared that any heavy discounting would create a domino effect
Domino effect
The domino effect is a chain reaction that occurs when a small change causes a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on in linear sequence. The term is best known as a mechanical effect, and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes...

 and drag down other high street retailers. Deloitte later announced they had received "substantial interest" in Woolworths.

When news about Woolworths being placed into administration became widely publicised, National Lottery
National Lottery (United Kingdom)
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...

 operator Camelot Group
Camelot Group
Camelot GroupCamelot is a private limited company, its entire share issue is owned by a single shareholder, as detailed above. are the operators of the UK National Lottery. Camelot Group was awarded the National Lottery franchise in 1993 and was re-awarded the franchise in 2001 and again in 2007...

 immediately suspended Woolworths from selling their lottery tickets and scratch cards, as well as preventing claimants from redeeming prizes at the stores.

On 19 January 2009, the parent company, Woolworths Group, announced its intention to also enter administration, as it can no longer pay its debts. The application was heard by the High Court on 27 January, and Woolworths Group plc entered administration. By April 2009 Woolworths Group plc's website no longer existed.

Closing-down process

On 5 December, Woolworths both recorded their greatest single day takings of £27 million, and axed 450 head office and support staff jobs. A closing-down sale started on 11 December.

On 17 December 2008, administrators announced that all 807 Woolworths stores would close by 5 January 2009 (later changed to 6 January), with 27,000 job losses. Deloitte's Neville Kahn also said that it was unclear how much of Woolworths' debt would be paid. In the last few days of trading discounts of up to 90% were offered, and a number of stores sold all of their stock, many selling all of their fixtures and fittings too.

The former chief executive of Kingfisher, Woolworths' former parent company, and Ardeshir Naghshineh, a current shareholder of Woolworths, have criticised the closures.

The stores were closed in phases, and the final two closing days were moved back a day to try to sell more of the remaining stock and to ease logistics of closing.
  • 207 stores closed on 27 December 2008
  • 37 closed on 29 December
  • 164 closed on 30 December
  • 200 closed on 3 January 2009
  • remaining stores (approximately 200) closed on 6 January 2009

Former stores

The administrators announced on 10 December 2008 that they were having difficulty selling the company as a going concern, and as a result some stores might close before the end of the month. Talks were still progressing to sell individual stores and leases to a number of retailers, said to include the supermarket chains Morrisons
Morrisons
Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc is the fourth largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, headquartered in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The company is usually referred to and is branded as Morrisons formerly Morrison's, and it is part of the FTSE 100 Index of companies...

, Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...

, Asda
Asda
Asda Stores Ltd is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, general merchandise, toys and financial services. It also has a mobile telephone network, , Asda Mobile...

, Sainsbury's, The Co-operative and the discount chain The Original Factory Shop
The Original Factory Shop
The Original Factory Shop is a discount department store that was established in 1969. It currently operates 170 + stores across the United Kingdom.- Operations:...

 and Poundland
Poundland
Poundland is a British-based variety store chain which sells every item in its stores for £1. Established in April 1990 by Dave Dodd and Stephen Smith, Poundland stock a variety of around 3,000 home and kitchen-ware, gifts, healthcare and other products, across 16 categories many of which are brand...

.

In December 2008, Woolworths executive Tony Page was trying to raise around £40 million to relaunch the brand after closure. This would have been a smaller chain of 125 stores in the North of England, with hopes of returning to the South. However, a deal could not be met in time. The government were also asked in a final attempt to make the deal but without success.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...

 noted that the Government had considered saving Woolworths, but they concluded that it was a "financially unviable" business.

The supermarket chain Iceland
Iceland (supermarket)
Iceland is a supermarket chain in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Iceland's primary product lines include frozen foods, such as frozen prepared meals and frozen vegetables - hence the name of the company...

 bought 51 of the stores on 9 January 2009 for an undisclosed sum. Iceland had previously made a bid for Woolworths in 2008, but this initial bid was rejected. Baugur, one of the major shareholders of Woolworths, partly owns Iceland, and Baugur UK itself entered administration in February. Meanwhile, some of former Woolworths stores have been sporadically replaced by stores such as Boyes, Boots, H&M
H&M
H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB is a Swedish retail-clothing company, known for its fast-fashion clothing offerings for women, men, teenagers and children....

, Primark
Primark
Primark is a clothing retailer, operating over 223 stores in Ireland , the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Belgium...

, TK Maxx, TJ Hughes, B & M
B & M
B&M Retail Ltd is a retail chain of discount stores operating in the United Kingdom since 1976....

, Home Bargains
Home Bargains
Home Bargains is a chain of discount stores, offering home bargains, operating throughout the United Kingdom, founded by Tom Morris in Liverpool, England approximately 30 years ago...

, and W H Smith
W H Smith
WHSmith plc is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It is best known for its chain of high street, railway station, airport, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products...

. As of 2 February, the administrators are still negotiating the sale of the remaining sites of the Woolworths property portfolio.

The Woolworths store in Redhill, Surrey
Redhill, Surrey
Redhill is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead, Surrey, England and is part of the London commuter belt. Redhill and the adjacent town of Reigate form a single urban area.-History:...

 was one of the longest standing Woolworth's stores in South East England
South East England
South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...

 and was something of a landmark
Landmark
This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...

 in the area. As of today the store is a Wilkinsons.

In August 2010 the BBC reported that over 300 (i.e. approximately 40%) of ex-Woolworths stores remained empty, and that the largest group now using former Woolworths stores were discount retailers such as Poundland
Poundland
Poundland is a British-based variety store chain which sells every item in its stores for £1. Established in April 1990 by Dave Dodd and Stephen Smith, Poundland stock a variety of around 3,000 home and kitchen-ware, gifts, healthcare and other products, across 16 categories many of which are brand...

.

Alworths

According to press reports on 17 February 2009, entrepreneur Tony Page planned to open a chain of shops adopting the Woolworths format, but under a different name, with an initial 50 stores under the Alworths fascia.

One Alworths
Alworths
Alworths was a chain of British high-street retail stores created out of the remains of some of the former stores of Woolworths Plc. When the company fell into administration 15 branches were acquired by Poundstretcher.- History :...

 did open in Didcot
Didcot
Didcot is a town and civil parish in Oxfordshire about south of Oxford. Until 1974 it was in Berkshire, but was transferred to Oxfordshire in that year, and from Wallingford Rural District to the district of South Oxfordshire...

on 5 November 2009 In Didcot
Didcot
Didcot is a town and civil parish in Oxfordshire about south of Oxford. Until 1974 it was in Berkshire, but was transferred to Oxfordshire in that year, and from Wallingford Rural District to the district of South Oxfordshire...

, on the site of a previous Woolworths store, but Mr Page was not involved. As of January 2011, 18 stores had been opened.

However Alworths eventually suffered the same fate as its predecessor and entered administration and closed.

Wellworths

One of the former stores in Dorchester, Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

 was re-opened by BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...

 DJ Chris Evans on 11 March 2009 under the name Wellworths.

Shop Direct Group (Woolworths online store)

On 2 February 2009, it was announced that Woolworths is to be "re-born" as an online store
Electronic commerce
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...

, after the brand was bought by one of the companies belonging to The Daily Telegraph owners, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay
David and Frederick Barclay
Sir David Rowat Barclay and Sir Frederick Hugh Barclay are British businessmen. The identical twin brothers have very substantial business interests primarily in media, retail and property. The Sunday Times Rich List of 2007 estimated their wealth at £1.8 billion...

. The Woolworths
Woolworths.co.uk
Woolworths.co.uk is an online retail company owned by Shop Direct Group, formed in 2009, after the demise of the high street Woolworths stores. The online store opened on 25 June 2009.- Stores in Britain :...

 and Ladybird brand names were both bought by Shop Direct Group who also own companies such as Littlewoods
Littlewoods
Littlewoods is the name of a former retail and gambling company founded in Liverpool, Merseyside, England by John Moores in 1923.It started as a shopping catalogue company, processing orders by post in the early 1970s. In 1981, it expanded to a call centre, processing orders via telephone. At its...

, Kays
Kays Catalogues
Kay and Co Ltd was a mail-order catalogue business, with offices and warehouses throughout the United Kingdom. It was a very successful company, especially during the latter part of the 20th century....

 and Great Universal
GUS (retailer)
GUS plc was a FTSE 100 retailing group based in the United Kingdom. GUS is an abbreviation of Great Universal Stores, the company's former name before 2001...

. The website will use the same URL as the previous Woolworths Group retail website, Woolworths.co.uk

Apart from the acquisition of the Woolworths trademarks and URLs there is no link at all between Woolworths Plc (and its predecessors) or the shops and businesses they operated, and the business that Shop Direct propose attaching the names and URLs to.

New Cross, London

Many branches of Woolworths suffered severe bomb damage and even destruction during the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....

 attacks in the early part of the Second World War. However it was towards the end of the war that the largest civilian loss of life due to direct enemy fire in Britain during the conflict occurred when, at lunchtime on 26 November 1944, a German V-2 rocket
V-2 rocket
The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...

 fell on a packed Woolworths store in New Cross Road
New Cross
New Cross is a district and ward of the London Borough of Lewisham, England. It is situated 4 miles south-east of Charing Cross. The ward covered by London post town and the SE 14 postcode district. New Cross is near St Johns, Telegraph Hill, Nunhead, Peckham, Brockley, Deptford and Greenwich...

, killing 168 people (including 15 children), injuring 122 others and razing the building to the ground. The neighbouring London Co-operative Society store was also demolished in the attack.

The store was especially busy as news of a delivery of hard-to-obtain saucepans generated huge crowds, many of whom were queueing outside the store at the time of the rocket's impact.

Planning and economic restrictions after the war meant Woolworths did not build a replacement store on the site until 1960; this closed in 1984. It was reported that some employees there felt the building was haunted.

Lewisham Council and Woolworths erected a plaque on the site commemorating those who died that day.

Central Manchester

A serious fire erupted just after 1pm on 8 May 1979 at the Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 store opposite Piccadilly Gardens
Piccadilly Gardens
Piccadilly Gardens is a green space in Manchester city centre, England, situated at one end of Market Street and on the edge of the Northern Quarter...

, said at the time to be the largest Woolworths in Europe, with six floors plus two basement levels. The fire, which started in the second floor furnishing department, killed nine shoppers and one member of staff; of whom three were found just six feet away from an exit with another three bodies nearby. Of the 12 calls made to the fire service that day, none came from the store itself. It is believed that the fire was started by a damaged electrical cable, which had furniture stacked in front of it. An inquiry showed that, although the store's fire precautions met all legal requirements, the spread of the fire and the high number of casualties were in part due to the absence of measures such as a fire sprinkler system to stop the spread of the fire from the furniture department, and the use of polyurethane foam
Polyurethane
A polyurethane is any polymer composed of a chain of organic units joined by carbamate links. Polyurethane polymers are formed through step-growth polymerization, by reacting a monomer with another monomer in the presence of a catalyst.Polyurethanes are...

 in the furnishings, a material which is highly-inflammable and highly toxic but cheap and at that time legal in furniture; however, this would have consequences for later legislation.

The second floor was gutted by the fire, while the third floor suffered severe smoke damage; the ground, first and second floors all received extensive water damage when the fire was extinguished. Due to the loss of life and devastation to the Manchester store, the Fire Research Station conducted a number of tests to develop sprinkler systems that could handle a similar large department store fire. However, there is still no requirement for United Kingdom retailers to have a sprinkler system in place, with many preferring to focus on evacuation procedures rather than fire containment. The catastrophe also resulted in modifications to the Fire Precautions Act and was among the factors that led to the ban on the use of polyurethane foam in home furnishings (a long-time concern of the Fire Service) forcing furniture manufacturers to develop new fabrics and materials for sofas and other items.

The fire brought graphic images into the public consciousness (including footage of office girls trapped behind barred windows on the top floor) due to the store's location near the studios of BBC Manchester
BBC North West
BBC North West is the BBC English Region serving Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Walsden in West Yorkshire, the Isle of Man , north-west Derbyshire, the Yorkshire Dales including Settle and Ribblesdale, and southern Cumbria.BBC North West television output is also broadcast in...

 and Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....

, the offices of the Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...

 and the northern offices of several national newspapers.

The disaster has become a significant object of study for academics interested in the behaviour of people in emergency situations, after research showed a number of customers (predominately in the public restaurant area) refused to leave despite the sounding of alarms, requests from staff and even the smell and visibility of smoke
Smoke
Smoke is a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires , but may also be used for pest...

; some even continued to queue at an abandoned check-out. The majority of those who perished were in this area.

The store subsequently re-opened and eventually closed in 1986. It is presently an amusement arcade
Amusement arcade
An amusement arcade or video arcade is a venue where people play arcade games such as video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers , or coin-operated billiards or air hockey tables...

 The company did have several smaller outlets during the 1990s which sold music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 and confectionery
Confectionery
Confectionery is the set of food items that are rich in sugar, any one or type of which is called a confection. Modern usage may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well...

. Smaller outlets with a similar format were also tried at the Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

 Meadowhall Shopping Centre, but closed in 2003; the Manchester Music and Video store was superseded by a larger MVC
Music and Video Club
Music and Video Club or MVC was a British entertainment retailer which sold DVDs, VHS, audio cassettes, video games, and CDs of popular and specialist titles. At its peak the company operated 82 stores in the United Kingdom and also sold products over the Internet...

 store, owned by Woolworths Group.

Central Leeds

Woolworths original branch on Briggate
Briggate
Briggate is one of the pedestrianised principal shopping streets in central Leeds, England. Most of Leeds' department stores are on Briggate, including the Harvey Nichols branch. It is home to a number of major high street retailers as well as banks, restaurants and cafes. Recently there have been...

 in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

 which opened in 1913 was one of the chains flagship shops and was spread over four floors. The branch however suffered a major fire in 1969. Significant damage was caused to the shop which was refitted following the fire. The shop was not open to the public at the time and all staff were evacuated, avoiding fatalities. Only minor injuries were suffered. It took several hours for the fire to be extinguished.

Bangor, County Down

Woolworths' store at 18/22 Main Street Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland (Store No. 380) was targeted by terrorists on 30 March 1974 as part of co-ordinated incendiary bomb attack on the town centre.

At 5pm, a telephone warning was received that fifteen incendiary devices had been placed in the town centre and were due to explode in 30 minutes. Immediate and successful efforts were made by the Police to evacuate the commercial centre of the town, however there was inadequate time to prevent the devices from exploding. The Woolworths store was badly damaged after a device exploded on the salesfloor. A Policeman suffered concussion after he was blown off his feet by the resultant blast from the device and a female civilian was cut by flying debris.

Other stores targeted in the attack included the town's Co-operative Department Store and FA Wellworth Department Store
Wellworths
Wellworths was a supermarket chain, owned by the Fitzwilton trading in Northern Ireland until 1997. Along with Stewarts/Crazy Prices it was one of the two main supermarkets in Northern Ireland until English-based retailers moved into the marketplace....

. The town's Woolworths' store was demolished after the attack. A new 8000 square feet (743.2 m²) store was built on the same site, which reopened in the mid 1970s.

The rebuilt store suffered minor damage after a 200 lb car bomb exploded a short distance away, near the town's FA Wellworth's store on the evening of 21 October 1992. Nobody was injured in the explosion, which occurred after most stores in the town centre had closed for the day. However, significant damage was caused to the entrance area of the Woolworths' store, with windows being blown out, the porch roof being destroyed and a small quantity of stock toward the front of the store being damaged. Additionally, minor structural damage was caused to the store's stockroom with two internal portioning walls adjacent to the Generator Room and Fixtures' Store having to be rebuilt. The store recommenced trading on 23 October 1992.

Wooly and Worth

Between 2004 and 2008, Woolworths adverts featured their own mascots, 'Wooly' the sheep and 'Worth' the sheepdog. They appeared in many adverts, including Woolworths WorthIt! adverts. In 2009, they were due to reappear in a half hour comedy special Wooly And Worth's Christmas Message, in which they reveal that they have been homeless since the closure of Woolworths. Scenes were filmed of the pair in a Job Centre and trying to secure and advertising contract with a number of other stores. The film, written and directed by radio presenter and writer Steve Oliver has been held up due to legal complications. As Mr Oliver says "It isn't really Christmas without Woolworths".

Music

Woolworths, for many years, was a leader in the UK music industry. In the 1950s and well into the 1960s, Woolworths issued recordings available only via their stores on their own label Embassy Records
Embassy Records
Embassy Records was originally a UK budget record label that produced cover versions of current hit songs that were sold exclusively in Woolworths shops at a cheaper price than the original recordings. As such, Embassy can be seen as the UK equivalent of U.S. labels such as Hit and Bell Records...

, produced and manufactured by Oriole Records
Oriole Records (UK)
Oriole Records was the first British record label founded in 1925 by the London-based Levy Company, which owned a gramophone record subsidiary called Levaphone Records.-History:...

. These releases were double-sided singles featuring two cover versions of current hit singles sold at a much cheaper price. This venture was very successful at the time, but was eventually killed off when other record companies started to issue compilation albums. However, Woolworths remained in the music business selling a wide range of singles and albums, and remained the UK's Number 1 music retailer well into the 1990s. Even successful nationwide music specialists stores such as Virgin Megastore
Virgin Megastore
Virgin Megastores is an international chain of record shops, founded by Sir Richard Branson on London's Oxford Street in early 1971. Virgin Megastores are best described today as entertainment retailers....

 and HMV did not overtake Woolworths during this time. They later suffered from strong competition in this field from the large supermarket chains Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...

 and Asda
Asda
Asda Stores Ltd is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, general merchandise, toys and financial services. It also has a mobile telephone network, , Asda Mobile...

.

Entertainment UK

Entertainment UK
Entertainment UK
Entertainment UK Limited was a retail supply and distribution company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Woolworths Group plc. The company, along with Woolworths plc, entered administration with Deloitte & Touche on 28 November 2008...

(EUK) was founded, originally as Record Merchandisers Limited in 1966 by EMI Records, to distribute music to non-specialist retailers, and subsequently became a joint venture between a number of record companies. Woolworths became Entertainment UK's largest customer and in 1986 Record Merchandisers Limited was acquired by the Kingfisher Group
Kingfisher plc
Kingfisher plc is a multinational retailing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest home improvement retailer in Europe and the third-largest in the world...

. In 1988, Record Merchandisers Limited changed its name to Entertainment UK (EUK).

EUK became the property of Woolworths Group plc after the demerger from parent company, the Kingfisher Group, in 2001. In 2006, the Woolworths Group acquired Total Home Entertainment Distribution Limited (THE) to form part of Entertainment UK (EUK) division. In November 2007 EUK acquired Bertram Books
Bertram books
Bertram Books is the UK’s leading book wholesaler having grown from a family business to a global organisation employing over of 400 staff. A division of Smiths News Plc, the UK’s largest news and magazine distributor, Bertrams is a three times winner of the British Book Award for Supply Chain...

, a major book wholesaler and distributor.

EUK was the main supplier of Zavvi under an exclusive supply deal. As a result of EUK entering into administration, on the 24 December the music retailer was also forced into administration as it was unable to source stock on favourable terms direct from suppliers. Zavvi later closed entirely.

Streets Online

Streets Online, founded in 1996 by Stephen Cole, was one of the pioneers of online retailing in the UK. Originally the name behind the online bookseller Alphabetstreet and music site Audiostreet, 85% of the company was bought out by the Kingfisher Group
Kingfisher plc
Kingfisher plc is a multinational retailing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest home improvement retailer in Europe and the third-largest in the world...

 in 2000 for £15.7 million, and then became part of the Woolworths Group with its demerger in 2001. It then became responsible for the web operations of MVC
Music and Video Club
Music and Video Club or MVC was a British entertainment retailer which sold DVDs, VHS, audio cassettes, video games, and CDs of popular and specialist titles. At its peak the company operated 82 stores in the United Kingdom and also sold products over the Internet...

 and Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...

. When Kingfisher bought this 85%, the remaining 15% was owned by Sky New Media Ventures (part of BSkyB). In 2003 the company headquarters was moved to the EUK site in Hayes
Hayes, Hillingdon
Hayes is a town in the London Borough of Hillingdon, West London. It is a suburban development situated west of Charing Cross. Hayes was developed in the late 19th and 20th centuries as an industrial locality to which residential districts were later added in order to house factory workers...

.

2 Entertain

2 Entertain is a joint-venture company combining the former video and music publishing and TV/video production businesses of the Woolworths Group subsidiary, VCI, with the video publishing business of BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...

. After negotiations with Woolworth Group's administrators, BBC Worldwide has since purchased Woolworths stake in 2entertain, and now is the sole owner of the company.

Brands

Chad Valley

Chad Valley was launched in 1991 to create an own label range of merchandise. The Chad Valley brand name, which has been in existence since 1860, is used on a range of toys and games suitable for children under 8 years old. Home Retail Group, the parent company of Argos
Argos (retailer)
Argos is the largest general-goods retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland with over 800 stores. It is unique amongst major retailers in the UK in that it is a catalogue merchant...

 and Homebase
Homebase
Homebase is a British home improvement store and garden centre, with 350 stores across the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It is well known by its green and orange colour scheme. Together with its sister company Argos , it forms part of Home Retail Group. Homebase recorded sales figures...

, purchased the brand for £5 million on 20 January 2009. Chad Valley is now exclusively in the Argos catalogue starting Autumn/Winter 2009.

Embassy Records

Embassy Records was a series of 45 RPM budget records sold in Woolworths in a label jointly owned by Woolworths and Oriole Records
Oriole Records (UK)
Oriole Records was the first British record label founded in 1925 by the London-based Levy Company, which owned a gramophone record subsidiary called Levaphone Records.-History:...

.

Ladybird

Ladybird is 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 Coats Viyella
Viyella
Viyella was a blend of wool and cotton first woven in 1893 in England, and soon to be the "first branded fabric in the world". It was made of 55 percent merino wool and 45 percent cotton in a twill weave, developed by James and Robert Sissons of William Hollins & Company, spinners and hosiers...

 in 2001. The brand has a history which dates back to a trading partnership beginning in 1934 between the original firm Adolf Pasold & Son and Woolworths. On 1 February 2009, Shop Direct purchased the brand and whole rights from the administrators.

Winfield

The Winfield brand was launched by Woolworths in 1963 and continued until the 1980s. Goods sold under the brand included household cleaners, groceries, kitchenware, perfumes and other ranges e.g. fishing tackle
Fishing tackle
Fishing tackle, is a general term that refers to the equipment used by fishermen when fishing. Almost any equipment or gear used for fishing can be called fishing tackle. Some examples are hooks, lines, sinkers, floats, rods, reels, baits, lures, spears, nets, gaffs, traps, waders and tackle...

.

WorthIt!

The WorthIt! brand was a value range released by Woolworths in 2007. The first advertising campaign for the brand which first aired on 15 June 2007 introduced the characters of Worth the dog and Wooly the sheep. Further advertising campaigns featured celebrities such as Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris
Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...

, Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

 and Kelly Osbourne
Kelly Osbourne
Kelly Michelle Lee Osbourne is an English media personality, television personality, host, judge, fashion designer, singer, and actress, best known for being the daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne...

. The brand covered a wide variety of products including confectionery, electricals, alcohol, jewellery, perfumes and clothing.

At the time of the administration of Woolworths Plc, there was a pending trademark application for the Worthit brand, and this was acquired by Shop Direct. However, registered trademark status was subsequently refused.

In popular culture

  • Woolworths is referred to in the 1979 song "Low Budget" by The Kinks
    The Kinks
    The Kinks were an English rock band formed in Muswell Hill, North London, by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1964. Categorised in the United States as a British Invasion band, The Kinks are recognised as one of the most important and influential rock acts of the era. Their music was influenced by a...

    , from their album Low Budget
    Low Budget (album)
    Low Budget is a 1979 album by the English rock group, The Kinks. It was a great success for the group, becoming their best-selling non-compilation album, peaking at #11 on the US album charts.-Track listing:-Personnel:...

    : "I'm shopping at Woolworths and low discount stores..."

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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