Hahahaha! Great minds. I did mentally go through two or three other choices but as soon as I'd thought of Topshop I knew that was my answer. I couldn't choose for least likely, but I think you may be right about Smiths.
I'm sure BHS will be one of the next ones to go - it's always empty and it doesn't know its market, not sure if it is selling safe fashions to older people or trying to be youthful but good value...they also have constant reductions.
Smiths are iffy too. Likely to be bought up by the Waterstones beast? Not wholly confident about Sainsburys either...
Tesco, Poundland and Aldi are set to make fortunes.
I'm surprised Woolworths has lasted this long. The current conditions are probably the final straw. I see Deloittes got the administration - that'll be a big job. When Courts went into administration and we got the job, I got to manage the Penzance branch for a week. (I say "manage", I mean "close down and make the staff redundant two weeks before Christmas", but hey...)
I wonder about W.H.Smith, but that has a distribution business that (as far as I know) is successful, so it's probably safe. If I had to pick a retailer, I'd probably go for one of the less fashionable furniture retailers - not DFS, not IKEA, but one of the other ones. If people are going to hold off spending, it's likely to be on expensive things that they don't really need, like new sofas.
Retailer most likely to survive? Unless it's stupidly geared (or 'leveraged' as our American cousins like to say), Tesco must be pretty robust. John Lewis / Waitrose's ownership structure probably helps it too.
I hadn't thought of Tescos because the supermarkets have become so much an out of town thing, I don't see them as high st shops.
I suspect my picking of Clintons has a lot to do with an article I read during the last recession about card shops springing up where everything else failed - anything goes wrong in life, send a card. :-)
Currys for the same reasons as the furniture shops - I suspect a lot of people will realise they can manage without that new widescreen TV and I had got the impression they were struggling anyway.
Ah, spotted that it is now 'shop' rather than 'name', so Pizza Hut needs replacing with something.... I'd go for an electrical goods shop. Maybe Currys.
Today's news (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7751786.stm) suggests that those of us who think the DSG business has little going for it might be onto something....
It now, of course, looks as though we're probably all wrong; Whittard hasn't filed for administration yet, but a large number of articles saying it's about to, like this one from the BBC and the others it links to (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7796751.stm) are not a good sign, or likely to do the company any good....
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Smiths are iffy too. Likely to be bought up by the Waterstones beast? Not wholly confident about Sainsburys either...
Tesco, Poundland and Aldi are set to make fortunes.
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I wonder about W.H.Smith, but that has a distribution business that (as far as I know) is successful, so it's probably safe. If I had to pick a retailer, I'd probably go for one of the less fashionable furniture retailers - not DFS, not IKEA, but one of the other ones. If people are going to hold off spending, it's likely to be on expensive things that they don't really need, like new sofas.
Retailer most likely to survive? Unless it's stupidly geared (or 'leveraged' as our American cousins like to say), Tesco must be pretty robust. John Lewis / Waitrose's ownership structure probably helps it too.
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I suspect my picking of Clintons has a lot to do with an article I read during the last recession about card shops springing up where everything else failed - anything goes wrong in life, send a card. :-)
Currys for the same reasons as the furniture shops - I suspect a lot of people will realise they can manage without that new widescreen TV and I had got the impression they were struggling anyway.
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