So. How long is the shop banner going to be?
So will these stores get renamed?
"CarphoneWarehouseCurrysPCWorld"
I think Dixons group need to sort this out once and for all. I avoid at all costs already, its lazy and offputting.
Dixons Carphone Warehouse is shutting 134 shops, a move it insists will have "no impact on colleague numbers". The retail borg is consolidating its stores following the merger between Dixons Retail, owner of Currys and PC World, and Carphone Warehouse in May 2014. The new stores will house its remaining outlets under one roof …
"CarphoneWarehouseCurrysPCWorld"
quick combination gives me... "DixonsCarphoneWarehouseCurrysPCWorldMugsWelcomeU", which works out as... DCWCPCWMWU
but then, the "warehouse" bit is so PC wrong, so... 1990s! Let's re-invent this as... "Logistics Hub" or something.
Now, give me my due 1M creativity bonus and severance package, quick!
@Anonymous Coward; Says a lot about how names become so familiar you don't think about them when you choose the "Warehouse" bit as being "so 1990s", but miss the fact it's got the even more anachronistic "carphone" in its name! :-)
(You might be interested to note that it's apparently known as "Phone House" outside the UK and Ireland).
FWIW, Carphone Warehouse was apparently founded in 1989, so wasn't the phrase "car phone" already a bit anachronistic by then? Bearing in mind that that the 1G analogue networks that replaced the aforementioned car phones with this (#) had already launched in the mid-80s (and, I'd assume, were already rendering the old-style car phones obsolete).
(#) The phone, that is, not Sigue Sigue Sputnik or Janet Steet Porter.
Morrisons did one worse... many shops bought out by Nisa, who then renamed them 'mylocal' - one of the most stupid names to search for, even google confused...
did a search for morrisons, found ancient website, no clue where the 'taken over' shops had gone...
I'm betting that staff turnover is enough to get rid of the required numbers of "colleagues" without having to bother with expensive and time consuming redundancy consultation periods and the associated costs. They won't be hiring anyone new this coming year. Natural wastage is probably cheaper.
Icon, 'cos that's what they seem to employ.
@Tony S
"Based upon previous encounters with these people, it seems likely that they will keep the same staff who will now be ignorant of products in 3 completely separate markets."
I counter they're not completely ignorant. They're very adept at getting all the information they need to answer questions from customers from the handy ticket shaped collection of notes on the shelf in front of each product.
I do better:
they'd been so consistantly poor, that they made me discover internet shopping back in 20th century! And they continue in this effort as we speak.
Kind of a National Titanic, resting in shallow waters, that nobody dares to scrap, and every couple of years they collect a bucketful of 1p to give it a lick of a fresh, new paint.
They are like Maplins, If you really need something there and then they probably have it in stock, and if you ring and reserve / click and collect you get a reasonable price, otherwise they are expensive.
They are OK for white and handheld goods, especially if you want to see it in person or feel the weight of something, but of the three PCWorld/Currys stores near home and work they seem to have such a haphazard layout, with shelves that show something out of stock, and even if the computer says its in stock the woefully inaccurate stock locating abilities sometimes its easier not to bother.
A few times I've ordered something only to be stuck in store 10 to 20 minutes as they can't find the item in the myriad of cupboards they may have hid the stock in, or even worse they haven't reserved it and you have to hope no-one else has bought it before you get there.
"They are OK for white and handheld goods, especially if you want to see it in person or feel the weight of something"
But too often they only seem to sell the base model. I just didn't buy a tablet from them because they were selling the Third World model with USB-B and 16G instead of the developed world version with USB-C, 64G/4G. I had to go to Amazon. I realise they can't stock everything, but it would be interesting to know their stocking policy.
"They are like Maplins, If you really need something there and then they probably have it in stock, and if you ring and reserve / click and collect you get a reasonable price, otherwise they are expensive."
A couple of years ago our bread machine died. A quick Google around found that the best price for the model we chose was....PCWorld. They were merged with Currys by then but it still seemed weird. So we reserved online and went off to buy it. The guy at the collection point desk looked a bit blank when we told him why we were there. So he had a look in the pile of reserved items, came back with the correct box, still looking a bit bemused and said "I didn't know we sold these".
It's still going strong with an almost daily usage :-)
We have four in our small town, a huge Currys, a biggish PC World, and two CPWs, one High Street and one out of town retails park one.
The Currys carries much of the PC World lines, and has a mobile section.
So yes, it does make sense.
The art of shopping at Currys: Know what you want before you go in and make sure the deal works pricewise. Then go in, avoid eye contact with any staff and buy your item.
Get out quick.
Many many years ago I worked for Tandy when Carphone Whorehouse bought them. After two years of being told no stores would be shut, I found out my site was closing.
It was 'ok' though as they offered me a job at the nearby Carphone with the same salary. Problem was the salary wasn't far off minimum wage with a 100 to 150% bonus depending on performance at Tandy, obviously no bonus available at Carphone though.
This way they didn't make any numbers redundant, but unsurprisingly quite a lot of us left.
"no impact on colleague numbers" . You know when the language is as shrouded in management speak ( aka bullshit) that they're hiding something. It miught as well be coming out of a poiliticians mouth.
I'm betting before long some of those colleagues will be "Empowered with choice in the job market"
I had that at Christmas, no stock of a TV on sale and could not tell me if it would be back in stock (no stock anywhere in Scotland) before the prices went up . I bought the same item online and delivered a week later and saved over £50 not including the saving on the £80 HDMI cable they claimed was required for UHD upscaling. I bought one for £5 from same online supplier and works fine.