George Whites - Bust

[_Stretchie_]

Was in the Swindon one the other week looking for new winter gloves and they had a MASSIVE selection.......

Of Frank Thomas ones , the search continued

[Biker Biggles]

Might be a few smaller main dealers breathing sighs of relief.These huge multi outlet chains have been shoving out the locals for years,but they all seem to go under in the end.Remember Carnells/Motor Cycle City/Riossi.

Simple economics. If you discount every bike through the floor you end up having to shift massive numbers to keep trading, and the fact is not enough people are buying new bikes at the moment so they don't make any profit from the few they do sell. They engineered their own downfall really.

It may look like bad news for the bike trade, but believe me it's not really. Discounters like George Whites have been killing off smaller businesses for years with their constant undercutting of prices and they always end up going bust. Carnells, Motorcycle City and many years ago Coburn and Hughes all did the same thing.

I feel sorry for their staff who now have to find new jobs, but as for the owners and their business model... good riddance.

[Biker Biggles]

You read my mind Lozzo

[joshwalker094]

damn it, i was planning to go get leathers at week end from the bolton outlet aswell :/

You may well find that a lot of the stuff will be going cheap.
They stores should theoretically no longer be allowed to trade until the administrators have decided what they are going to do.

More often than not, they will auction off the bits and pieces.

Anybody know who has been appointed as administrator? I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone big like KPMG, PwC, Mazzars or Ernst and Young.

Delloite are administrators

I'm sure I put up a post saying Deloitte were administrators and that most of the gear was likely to be sold in auction or potentially through continued trade (although unlikely)

I also said, but god knows where my post went, that it may not be a profitability issue, but a cashflow at a time where people are less inclined to buy 'toys'.

found it, posted it in a different thread I'd been on...

'Seems as thought Deloitte have been appointed and just to clarify, there's nothing to say they weren't making a profit, it may have just been a cash flow issue.

Although, I do agree that in a market where you are generally selling 'toys' to people, when times get hard you will suffer harder than most.'

And the vultures circle!

Shame, if the biggest in the country is going bust, it's a sad state of affairs.

I'm not a fan of using these places for servicing, and I'm not prepared to start paying them for servicing. If that's what's needed to keep them afloat they need to change their business model so they don't have all their eggs in one basket.

But it is good to have somewhere that has a wide choice of gear and I would be prepared to pay an extra £20 quid for a helmet if that's what's needed to make these places profitable. We do need/want these places, so if selling bikes and gear on it's own isn't profitable, and the whole industry is on it's rssss, sorry to say it, but prices need to go up. I guess if a few big players go bust that will happen naturally as competition reduces and the trade redistributes amongst remaining dealers. Still places like this going bust may yield a few bargains, but it is never good for us in the long term.

Originally Posted by Lozzo

It may look like bad news for the bike trade, but believe me it's not really

See above post. It probably is good news for the rest of the remaining bike trade, but it's bad news for the consumer. Just look at the number of folk on this thread who are saying 'damn, I was just about to buy X from them'

It's a similar argument to Tesco. They open a new supermarket and push out all the smaller retailers. People hate the principal of it but it doesn't stop them shopping there. The reality is they love the choice, the time saved by using a one-stop shop and the value.