Wild Wednesday At Debenhams.

[Barsel]

Who's going for a free for all tomorrow? Lots of Covid spreading and punch ups , riot police, £1,000 fines for not keeping you distance.Just what we need.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/index.html

[grumpy01]

This has been coming for a while unfortunately.Hopefully even if they sell most of their stock some one will buy the chain and save at least some jobs.Sadly I doubt it though.

[Barsel]

It will be interesting to see if crowds of people turn up looking for a Christmas bargain but I won't be one of them.

[Mamyalynne]

It's cold out there, not for me either.

[jno]

I shall be with them in spirit.

[gingejbee]

Never having bought a single thing in Debenhams, I won't be starting now.

[douglas9401]

I bought a lightweight jacket from them decades ago. That's when I discovered that 'dry-clean only' was just a suggestion, washed up fine.

[Bazile]

Another one of these goliaths is toppled by the sling of market forces

[237SJ]

I quite like Mantaray at Debenhams - I have bought a few beach and holiday items from them. Not sure I can be bothered to go back for their sale though. I feel sorry for the staff who are going to lose their jobs.

[cashier]

Don't know where my nearest is thank goodness. I imagine it will be horrendous.

[237SJ]

^ Why "Thank Goodness"?

[New Judge]

//Don't know where my nearest is thank goodness.//

I know where mine is. It closed down last Christmas Eve. They were going to convert it to a Boots (without a pharmacy). Since the only reason I can think anybody goes to Boots is to collect a prescription I cannot imagine what the shop would be for. In any case, having ripped up a perfectly good floor the pandemic struck and work was halted.

[MallyJ]

Always thought that their goods for sale were really boring so never bothered with the shops.

[cashier]

Just for tomorrow 237SJ. Used to go to the one in Altrincham, quite liked it, but it closed ages ago.

[Buenchico]

I posted this 4½ years ago:
"Firms looking dodgy at the moment? My list would include:
HMV
Mothercare
W H Smith
Debenhams
Carpetright
Little Chef
Clarks Shoes".

3 out of the 7 have now gone - and I certainly won't be buying any shares in the other four either!

Apart from nipping in to use the loo occasionally, I can't remember when I was last in the Ipswich branch (or, indeed, any other) of Debenhams. On the few occasions that a call of nature has forced me in there, I've sometimes taken a quick look around to see if there's anything that I might want to buy but the few items which might have interested me were much dearer than similar goods elsewhere. (I do remember checking on the prices of their leather wallets about a decade ago. The cheapest they'd got was £30 and it wasn't any better than the one I eventually bought on Norwich market for £6).

Some people must be hoping for bargains in Debenham's clearance though, as their website is currently inaccessible due to being unable to handle the volume of traffic.

[jno]

looted by private funds who owned it from 2003 to 2006

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/01/debenhams-never-recovered-from-private-equity-ownership

/// The trio of funds, TPG, CVC Capital and Merrill Lynch, made huge returns from their £600m investment, collecting £1.2bn in dividends despite owning the company for less than three years.

Debenhams owed around £100m when it was taken private but, by the time it returned to the stock market in 2006, that debt had swollen to more than £1bn.///

[jennyjoan]

I would never miss Debenhams in a million years. I used to work in town Belfast and nearly all the time perhaps every time when I used/had to shop in Debenhams - I found the assistants, atmosphere, non-helpfulness - to be non existent, so I couldn't care less about it going.

[zebo]

I'd certainly not be buying off their website, if it's still running, that would be making a donation to the Receivers.

[zebo]

I'm apparently Number 563,555 in the virtual queue!

[Cloverjo]

It’s a shame Debenhams is on its way out. As Buenchico says, it’s been in decline for years, though. I popped in to use the loo a couple of years ago and the place was packed with really horrible clothes, with a couple of women miserably wandering around trying to find something.

[Bazile]

People should bear in mind that a bargain is only a bargain if you think its a bargain

£X off is only good value if you consider that the original price was good value

I get the feeling that people rush to part with their folding just because a sign says 'sale'