>>27043

Revamp = revamp

Dam autocorrect

>>27044

You okay mate?

>>27043
Amazon is a great company to work for, as long as you're not in one of the warehouses. Your friends might get paid more, but they're about to learn the meaning of "work hard".

>JD Sports is expected to pull out of talks over a rescue deal for department store chain Debenhams on Tuesday.

>It was the last remaining bidder for the firm, which is in administration, and up until the end of last week had been closing in on a deal. But retail giant Arcadia is the biggest concession operator in Debenhams and its collapse is understood to have been a factor in JD Sports' decision. Without a buyer, Debenhams could be wound down, risking thousands of jobs.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55139713

Looks like this is finally it for Debenhams.

There won't be a high street after all this.

A fire sale during a pandemic. What could go wrong?

>>29137
Lockdown v3.0

>>29137
Hmm. Should go well.

>>29137
Time I actually get onto the website everything I want will be gone. I bet they won't even have big discounts considering everyone will want to come away with something.

I've been dressing myself almost exclusively via Debenhams since I was about 22, when I learned that women don't really notice or care how you dress, as long as it looks deliberate - and some of them are very much into the depressed dad look anyway.

It will be a shame to see them go, but I fully understand why, I have not once stood in a queue at a Debenhams in those last nine years.

>>29146
Comparing to Amazon, I'm not actually sure I saved any money and now feel a bit silly. At least I finally bought something from the place after all those times I just walked through to get to the shopping centre.

Watch everything arrive now in the wrong sizes.

>>29152
How's your polo shirt collection? I have quite the selection - Mantaray, Rocha, St Duffer, all picked up in the sales.

Boohoo buying the Debenhams brand names but not the physical stores and Asos doing the same with Arcadia brands like Topshop and Miss Selfridge, there won't be any high street left at this rate.

>>30872

>>30872
Is it accelerationist to like this sort thing? I feel like it will get us closer to UBI since there won't be any jobs for lower income people.

>>30874

>Is it accelerationist to like this sort thing?

Yes.

Also:

>>30874
Give it a few years and we'll all be slaves for the early retirees.

Coronavirus will wipe through the elderly, which means that those in their fifties and sixties will inherit the wealth of their parents and it'll have barely been reduced by having to pay for care fees. Care homes up and down the land will close as there's fewer elderly people needing their arses wiping, leading to hundreds of thousands of people suddenly without a career.

The population pyramid means that those in retirement are the ones who have to be appeased to win elections. We'll be at the whim of these very wealthy early retirees. Don't be surprised if sedan chairs make a comeback as getting carried around by a couple of paupers becomes the latest status symbol.

>>30877

>Don't be surprised if sedan chairs make a comeback as getting carried around by a couple of paupers becomes the latest status symbol.

I've had worse jobs TBH.

>>30875

I'd never actually considered it before but Wham! did some good fuckin pop music.

What a banger.

Thorntons closing all 61 chocolate stores permanently with more than 600 jobs at risk

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-thorntons-closing-61-chocolate-23727706

There isn't going to be anything left on the high street at this rate.

>>32066
I assume this is a result of a recent bad review by a poster on one of Britain's more popular discussion forums?

>>32067
It's the only logical conclusion.

>>32067

Mumsnet has a lot to answer for.

I'm not surprised Thornton's is going. Their chocolate is both poor quality and expensive.

>>32070
And all because of some trans fats.

US fashion giant Gap has confirmed it plans to close all its 81 stores in the UK and Ireland and go online-only. The firm said it would close all its stores "in a phased manner" between the end of August and the end of September. This includes 19 stores that were already scheduled to close in July as their leases were expiring.

The company has not disclosed how many employees the closures will affect, but will shortly start a consultation process with the staff. The firm said it was "not exiting the UK market" and would continue to offer a web-based store when all the shops had closed.

A Gap spokesperson said the decision followed a strategic review of its European business. As a result, Gap is also looking to offload its stores in France and Italy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57670737

>>34379
Do people still wear their clothes?

I think the pandemic has finished off a bunch of zombie businesses that the internet was already ruining; same goes for the Top Shop empire - young people don't buy their clothes from those stores anymore.

>>34380
I can't remember the last time I even saw one of their shops.

>>34380

I like their jeans selection and I bought a couple of T Shirts there that fit great.

>>34380
Hopefully this will be the end of those ridiculously skinny jean shops and other places that do not cater to me. Never again will I pick up a pair of trousers in my size to try on only to find that they don't go past my thighs.

Over a year later and I'm still getting daily emails about the Debenhams sale. They're even having a summer sale at the moment where there doesn't seem to be much discount at all going on:
https://www.debenhams.com

Was it all a ruse?

>>34572
Debenhams is now an online only store owned by Boohoo. There won't be any further fire sales.

>>18927
>A fund manager explained to me a year or two ago that town centres are increasingly becoming places you go out for a social experience; to go to the cinema, bowling, for a meal, an escape room, etc.

The experiences replacing closed High Street stores

I'm taking a spin on a go-kart track with a difference. It's the old beauty hall of the Debenhams store in south-west London. The escalators are the only trace of the former department store which remain. All four floors are now being transformed into a high-tech entertainment venue. As we filmed, shoppers stopped to take photos when the shutters briefly opened giving a glimpse of the flashing lights and builders beavering away inside.

"We're creating a department store of fun," says Michael Harrison, the co-founder of Gravity which is due to open on 1 August. We have three bars, two restaurants, go-karting, a bowling alley, huge screens to watch sporting events and adventure golf. This is the future of the High Street. It's about experience," he says.

Michael has no shortage of retail landlords now ringing him up offering him potential new locations. They're grappling with the need to rethink, or repurpose, empty shops. Latest figures suggest one in seven stores, on average, are lying vacant. And in some places the number is far higher.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57934829

>>34795
From anecdotal evidence, a big part of the problem is landlords trying to hold onto the same prices they let for before despite the massive glut in empty units.

I know of a family run business thats been profitable enough for years, even through covid, being forced to relocate as the building owner is selling off the land to build houses, the cost cost of retail units in the town are eye wateringly high and they'd lose customers because there's no parking except the expensive multistory.

>>34795
I've seen all this before going back to the 00s. There's only a few businesses that can work on this model and they're gyms, cinemas and casinos whose clientele don't wander. These complexes soon rack up empty units and turn into ghost towns because the fundamental problem remains of a lack of foot traffic.

In London it's even worse because you have to compete with the more flexible Box Cities and a hundred or so dedicated businesses. Sporting event screens is the worst one because they're everywhere in London and some of them are a bit better than watching it at Debenhams.

>>34797

If you want a picture of the future, imagine the Trocadero re-opening under new management - for ever.

If I wanted to buy a commercial unit just for a laugh, what would it run me? Not in the centre, but maybe up a quiet alleyway in the surrounding inner city. I guess I'd have to pay rent, and then business rates on it (even though I don't have a business)? What other costs are involved? Security and maintenance?

>>34798
Wouldn't be the worst thing. I assume the margins on such an enterprise are shit but I do miss that place.

>>34799

Commercial property can be an absolute minefield. If you just want somewhere to fettle your motorbike or hide from your wife, I'd suggest ringing around your local self-storage places - a lot of them offer units with power sockets that are suitable for use as a workshop.

>>34799
Business rates should be rebated to zero at the moment (and have been for at least the last 5 years)
Bear in mind paying business rates (even at zero) doesn't get you any services like bins. It might get you some furlough payments though if a pandemic should happen along.

>>34799
Just had a look at prices round here and a 600sqft garage+box room down an alley is going for £50K. Small retail spaces like old corner shops are going for around £250-500K

>>34803 Is that £50K freehold?

>>34803
I don't think you're allowed to live there, before you try it. There are zoning laws and things which say buildings can't be used for residential purposes if they're businesses.

>>34807
I met a girl once who was living illegally in a warehouse that had been converted into a small commune, as it was an affordable way to live in London, and was championed at the time by trendy twenty-somethings coming over from Europe.

>>34803

As otherlad points out, that will almost certainly not be freehold. I've been looking for a bigger unit to buy for fucking years, but all you really seem to be able to do is buy a pile of bricks on someone else's land, that you then pay ground rent on, often more than it would be just to rent a unit privately.

>>34807

You're definitely not, but there's also no rule against having an 8-10 hour nap in your workshop. I stayed the night at mine when I had it plenty of times and nobody ever shopped me. It had a bog and shower in it anyway.

>>34814
I know a few art spaces in semi-industrial areas that have people living in them for ... I don't know how long but they always seem to be there.

>>34807

You do need planning permission to convert a commercial property into a residential one, but as of next month it'll be a permitted development right under Class MA.

https://www.planninggeek.co.uk/gpdo/changes-of-use/class-ma/

>>34817
I'm curious how squatting rights intersect with planning rights, and if that's getting abused. If some interest wanted an industrial area turned into a residential development, could they secretly fund a commune to live in that area and "allow" them to build and develop amenities for a decade and then turn around and "buy them out" and go ham because now it's residential?

>>34818

You could in theory, but you wouldn't really need to. The new reforms to the planning system give the presumed right to convert most commercial properties to residential use. Council planning departments have a very short list of grounds to object to such a conversion, otherwise they have to give you permission.

If you wanted to develop on a large scale you'd need to jump through some hoops with regards to transport impacts, your development needs to have natural light in every habitable room, but otherwise there's really nothing they can do to stop you.

I'm currently looking for a suitable light industrial unit to convert, because I've always wanted a house with three-phase power and a loading dock.

>>34821
You're still constrained by building standards, though. If you're planning to build hutches for students, they have to be able to stretch their legs out and express natural behaviours such as shitting in buckets. It's a low bar.

It's going to be fascinating to see some of the horrendous conversions. My local council already (8 years ago?) converted a load of their city centre offices into student hovels in a strange arms-length deal. The conversions done with cardboard, string and piss buckets will be much more fun.
I'm pretty much in favour of it as a plan - have people actually live in city centres again, it's just the implementation that's going to be grim at times.