Woolworths Group PLC, while bankrupt, will survive as an online brand. The UK retailer Shop Direct UK has purchased the brand for an “undisclosed sum.”
Sadly, it came just after the company announced the layoff of over 1,000 employees. The Independent reported that the sale of the Woolworths brand was the “final nail in the coffin” of ex-directors and investors who had tried to salvage the business…
Wrote The Independent, “Tony Page, the former Woolworths commercial director, was reported to have secured backing and made an offer to Deloitte last week for the Woolworths brand, but his hopes were dashed.”
Perhaps there is an interim solution; since Shop Direct doesn’t operate stores, perhaps it offers to license out its brand to a bricks and mortar version of Woolworth? Indeed, for the mail order idea to really fly, it needs at least one highly visible Woolworth store open in London so consumers will have confidence in the brand. The brand, after all, is about cheap stuff in a cool-looking store.
The company will have a goodly portfolio of brands including:
- Great Universal, a historic mail order company, greatuniversal.com
- Littlewoods, the gaming and catalog company from Liverpool, littlewoods.com
- Marshall Ward, marshallward.co.uk