{"id":20464,"date":"2016-11-15T20:26:22","date_gmt":"2016-11-15T20:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=20464"},"modified":"2016-11-15T20:26:22","modified_gmt":"2016-11-15T20:26:22","slug":"ms-closures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=20464","title":{"rendered":"M&S Closures"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been in the news a lot over the last week that Marks & Spencer is going to be closing a many of its stores or converting them to food-only outlets due to poor sales.\"M&S<\/p>\n

M&S has not identified which stores will close, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the Daily Mail \u2013 that well-known xenophobic, right-wing publication \u2013 producing a list of its own, and frightening the hell out of M&S employees pretty much in every location throughout the country. And right before Christmas. Twats.<\/p>\n

But it got me thinking about something I\u2019ve discussed with a lot of my pupils over the last few years. If M&S is seen as having \u201ctoo many stores\u201d in some cities (that\u2019s the official analysts\u2019 view \u2013 there are 12 in Nottinghamshire), are the likes of Lidl and Aldi likely to come unstuck in the future as they continue their aggressive expansion policies in the UK? I mean, if you just look at overall sales per customer, and don\u2019t consider the actual store they shop in, how can Lidl, Aldi, M&S, Co-op, Tesco, Morrison’s, and so on possibly succeed in locations where ALL of those names have stores virtually next door to each other?<\/p>\n

Even when comparing like for like, Aldi has 16 stores in Nottinghamshire \u2013 with several further sites earmarked for development. Lidl has 10, and quite possibly other sites in the pipeline.<\/p>\n

At Netherfield, for example, there is a Lidl, a Morrison\u2019s, and an M&S Food Hall all within a 250m radius. Less than a mile away there is a Tesco superstore, and at least one small Sainsbury\u2019s. Sainsbury\u2019s are about to build a superstore right next to Morrison\u2019s in this same location. You don\u2019t need to be a genius to realise that being the ONLY food store is likely to produce a bigger turnover than being one of half a dozen or more all serving in the same catchment area.<\/p>\n

The Co-op has problems which are unique to it, It has been in financial difficulties for pretty much the whole of the last decade, and it has closed numerous stores. But it has also built many others. One of the best examples of the apparent incompetent management style responsible for it\u2019s dire financial situation can be seen in Clifton. The Co-op used to occupy a large unit on Varney Road (the \u201cbottom shops\u201d, as the location is sometimes called). A few years ago \u2013 in the middle of it\u2019s near collapse \u2013 it closed this store, only to reopen on the site of the former petrol station on Farnborough Road a few months later. The new, purpose-built store is only a few hundred metres away from the original location, which is now operated as a Mace store. The two were approximately similar in terms of floor area.<\/p>\n

M&S is accused of having too many stores \u2013 and its bubble is about to burst. The Co-op is frantically pumping air into one end of its bubble, while it gushes out at the other. So what logic should we apply to Aldi and Lidl who are currently inflating their own bubbles so that they\u2019re bigger than anyone else\u2019s \u2013 right next to those others?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been in the news a lot over the last week that Marks & Spencer is going to be closing a many of its stores or converting them to food-only outlets due to poor sales. M&S has not identified which stores will close, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the Daily Mail \u2013 that well-known xenophobic, right-wing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}