Owners of Threshers and Wine Rack in Administration.

March51

Could be the end for many high street 'offies' as First Quench Retailing goes into administration affecting 1,300 shops and thousands of staff members. Administrators KPMG hope to sell the chains as going concerns but the outlook is bleak. Recession and supermarkets blamed for the situation.

JollyRobin

Interesting alcohol sales have actually risen during the recession, however it would seem more people are going for the cheap Tesco & ASDA wine deals than spend their money at such stores.

Covered End

Who /why would you buy it as a going concern ? Off licences can't compete with Supermarkets, selling at below cost price as a loss leader !

northwicher

Yeah, can only see a few sites being hived off- all very grim.
Even Calais `s strugglin these days (OK, so they`ve got the exchange rate to combat to boot...)

March51

Read that around 6,500 employees could be put out of work: they're just waiting for the 'phone to ring to tell them to close up and go home! Terrible situation for them.

Stig

Feel really sorry for the employees. But as a business they've reaped what they've sown; charging prices that are more akin to a pub than an offy, having poor systems in place and not really catering for their customers properly. It's like Woolworths all over again.

Mortimerician

10 point penalty.

Valley_floyd_red

I used to work for Threshers, in what is now the wine rack opposite The Royal Standard pub in Blackheath. The writing has been on the wall for a long time. Even a couple of years ago the company was desperately trying to off load their stores, trying to encourage store managers to take on their shops as a franchise (somewhat akin to asking someone to take a gun and shoot themselves in the head), merging with wine rack, Victoria wine to form first quench group, closing down a load of stores.

We were lucky, Blackheath has a strong customer base, the three for a tenner deal was the only thing keeping the company afloat and there are a lot of wine drinkers in Blackheath. But even we were barely hitting our targets, our shop was also robbed on so many occasions that the police never used to bother turning up. It's a sad state of affairs but it's impossible for high street retailers to compete with the supermarkets on price, but you'll never get the customer service we were able to offer. The staff discount was deadly!

T_C_E

Price aside, which is a main factor. Every Offy you care to mention has the standard issue dozen wannabe yobs standing outside. When we lived in Charlton, many a time we'd fancy a bottle of wine, only for the wife to say why bother its more grief than its worth. Up on the "Hill" we have 2 dozen bottles delivery once a month