Whilst it would be truly sad to see WHSmith either disappear from our high streets or change hands to foreign ownership, I'm amazed it hasn't already been either sold off or shut down. Have you been in one recently? A shadow of what it was in the 80s/90s. I only use ours for InPost 🤷♂️😔
Reposted from
The Guardian
WH Smith considers possible sale of its high street business
Comments
“Manchester and Liverpool, for instance, are very important centres of software development, and in each of those cities W H. Smith have busy and well laid out areas devoted especially to computers and software.”
I know that’s not their core business, but my point is these shops used to have a wide appeal, now they offer very little to very few
The staff in ours have a real attitude problem too, making shopping there unpleasant.
- the only reason I have been in, recently.
I used to spend a lot of time in there as a kid, selecting magazines to spend my pocket money on, Amiga magazines, mostly...
No need for that now.
If I win the lottery (because I'd have no intention of actually turning a profit!) then this is priority number one.
Just got to start playing the lottery now...
Online retail dodges most of that.
Small shops could exist in towns and make them a nice place to be if they were let off the financial hook and the proprietor allowed to take home enough money to eat
Also a lot of the nicest towns around the world have a lot of people living in the town rather than just shops and offices which helps.
👀 https://youtube.com/watch?v=0VsK5oJoFlE&si=AHi_LDc2Hjx40d1J
Every Saturday I would be in there with my 2.50 pocket money looking at budget Spectrum games and deciding if I should save it until next week to get a better game.
I bought my first LP in there, the Ninja Turtles 1990 soundtrack.
I only used it to post eBay stuff on my dinner breaks as it had a post office and I’d just pick up a pen to write on my packages and put it back again 😂
10 PRINT "MARK WOZ ERE ";
20 GOTO 10
RUN
on a Spectrum and quickly leaving the shop 😅
Sadly, it lost it's way a long time ago and no longer seems to know what it's actually trying to be
It was the only place locally I could find a copy of GTA 4 when it came out. Wasn't long after that they stopped doing games altogether 🫤
There's concern in my industry that, if they disappear, it'll adversely affect UK print media circulation. But I have to wonder WHAT, exactly, their main line of trade is.