Jessops in Administration

[retired_member32]

do you believe the hype that Christmas was great for trade, with the BBC reporting from a number of high profile Shopping Centre's about trade being the best trade that they have ever had...another high electrical retailer goes to the wall, this one is a bit personal to me, i met my missus whilst she was working for Jessops and a very good friend is the Area Manager for the Midlands so not the best start to 2013...another few big brands reporting profit warnings are we still on the right course for recovery ?

 

[Edwin]

Headlines tend to focus on raw turnover, but it's "easy" to boost turnover by selling £10 notes for £9. Of course, that doesn't translate into profits! What's the expression again? "Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity". So even the retailers who may appear to have done well this Christmas according to the headline-writers ("like for like sales up x% year on year") may be in a world of hurt when they look at HOW those sales were achieved (e.g. deep discounting, early sales etc.)

 

[Admin]

I almost bought a new camera from them in December, glad I didn't now.

I don't think this one is so much about the economy, more about the change in technology and lifestyle habits where everyone uses their phone as a camera these days rather than having a separate device.

Shame to see it go all the same...

Admin

 

[retired_member33]

Headlines tend to focus on raw turnover, but it's "easy" to boost turnover by selling £10 notes for £9. Of course, that doesn't translate into profits! What's the expression again? "Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity". So even the retailers who may appear to have done well this Christmas according to the headline-writers ("like for like sales up x% year on year") may be in a world of hurt when they look at HOW those sales were achieved (e.g. deep discounting, early sales etc.)

Well said Edwin!

It's easy to make the general public think that things are going well by talking about an increase in turnover, profit is what it's all about.

With regards to Jessops, did they fail to catch up with the digital era?

Was talking to a car dealer in Northern Ireland last weekend and he told me that he is afraid that he will lose business to the internet as he expects that in the near future (more) people will start buying their cars online...When i then asked him why he wouldn't jump on the bandwagon and start selling cars online he replied that cars are his business, not running a website.

Poor judgement in my opinion and I guess the same goes for a lot of businesses, the internet is the present and future and you will need to adapt to it to survive.

Ok, back to work now

 

[tifosi]

I don't remember many high-street stores saying they has a good festive period. Even M&S were down. There was an increase in online sales, but that is part of the trend.

This won't be the first of the chains to go into administration I think. 4th quarter rents are due now and many will be really struggling to finance the debt for this. Banks are still c&*ts and are only concerned in recouping their balance sheets to pay off the government.

I'd buy shares in the big accountancy firms... they're going to be busy!

 

[afx]

I'm surprised they lasted this long. Everybody wants the lowest price, which is not something Jessops or any other company mired in previous century retailing have had for many years. The consumer is going to vote with their wallet and not feel like paying the wex or amazon price + the cost of a couple of hundred shops and staff.

 

[Jamie101]

I've never heard of Jessops to be honest, probably because they aren't in Ireland, but still would've thought that I'd know about them since they seem like they were quite big.

Apparently HMV could be next. They are starting a massive sale tomorrow to try get some cash in, but lots of people think that this is more than just a sale. I think their share price is even down 8% today too.

If you have any HMV gift cards or whatever it might be a good time to spend them while you can.

Edit - Share price is actually nearly down by 10% now.

 

[afx]

Well said Edwin!

With regards to Jessops, did they fail to catch up with the digital era?

They didn't do a kodak; I think they just failed to catch up with the shopping habit era.

 

[Aegean]

Geez I didnt know about this, I cant believe they've gone bust. Comet too.

 

[retired_member33]

They didn't do a kodak; I think they just failed to catch up with the shopping habit era.

Haha, wrong choice of words there!

I meant digital as in the online/internet era, not the digital camera

 

[figleaf007]

No need for everyone to be so negative, let's see what develops.........

(I'll get my coat)

FWIW, I don't think this is the high street going to pot, I think it's just the end of unnecessarily bloated businesses - Jesopps for example had a very large shop on New Oxford Street with huge swathes of empty floor space to make it 'lifestyle-y' but at the end of the day it could have fitted into a shop a third of its size and probably didn't need to be in such a prestigious location. Am sure there other examples.

 

[Ghengis]

I almost bought a new camera from them in December, glad I didn't now.

I don't think this one is so much about the economy, more about the change in technology and lifestyle habits where everyone uses their phone as a camera these days rather than having a separate device.

Shame to see it go all the same...

Admin

You do realise they only needed to sell one more camera and they would have been okay, You should have bought it.

 

[Systreg]

Sorry to say I've never heard of Jessops.

 

[RobM]

Amazing the amount of companies that ignored the internet. I see HMV are next.

 

[retired_member33]

Sorry to say I've never heard of Jessops.

I don't think they have any stores up in your beautiful country.

 

[Systreg]

I don't think they have any stores up in your beautiful country.

I've only been in Ireland for 2 years, the rest of my life I was in England, unless they're a newish company that only came in to being since I moved to Ireland?

[edit]

Just to add, when I first saw the name Jessops, I thought it was a builder merchants.

 

[jasman]

Woolworths also fell just after Christmas. These kinds of retailers make 40%+ of their annual sales in the 4th quarter. Even a crap Christmas is likely to be better than a good 1st, 2nd or 3rd quarter so in my view for them to go bust just after the period of most sales in the year points to a different reason. I suspect they were heavily in debt and the bank pulled the rug from under them. I think that happened with Woolworths too. Many business loans have a clause that the money can be called in at very short notice, sometimes immediately and whichever bank were financing them may have had strategic reasons for wanting to cut them out of the picture.

I suspect that most of our high street chains while appearing to be different companies are actually owned by 2 or 3 families/ groups. The Competition Commission can stop companies acquiring each other (not that it bothers any more as the politicians are stooges) but they can't stop powerful families/ groups buying up the shares of multiple companies. Many of the shares are held by offshore trusts which are private and therefore it is impossible to dsicover who is behind the trusts.

In case you haven't seen these recent articles, 147 super-banks/ corporations now control 40% of the worlds wealth and 737 control 80%:


http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-control-everything/

http://www.newscientist.com/article...e-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html

When you consider that the owners of the Federal Reserve control many of these super-banks, having bought them up using bail out money and from the $trillions in interest that the US government has paid them over the years for its government debt (and all this money was created out of thin air anyway when they loaned it), and that just a few families own the Fed, now the real picture comes into view - what appears to be a freemarket economy of millions of companies competing is more like a carefully concealed monopoly in the making.

 

[anthony]

Cameras are the perfect example of the type of product that can be sold almost entirely via the internet, there is simply no need to have a specific camera shop anymore, especially since the demise of film development. It was only a matter of time for Jessops, the only void it leaves is for a few highly specialised independents to fill the gap in the major conurbations to service the nerds.

 

[Blossom]

Cameras are the perfect example of the type of product that can be sold almost entirely via the internet, there is simply no need to have a specific camera shop anymore, especially since the demise of film development.

I disagree, a lot of people like to see and hold cameras in person before they commit to buying. Also, a lot of people walk in knowing they want a camera but expecting the staff to make recommendations rather than doing the research themselves.

IMO Jessops' problem was being undercut a lot by internet retailers, not making enough of a big deal about the bundles they did which were comparable to supermarket/online prices, and not diversifying/moving quickly enough to expand their products.

 

[domainseller200]

Just to add, when I first saw the name Jessops, I thought it was a builder merchants.

You're thinking of Jewsons Kev