That Was the Wonder of Woolies

This is a sad story as many of us in the UK have fond memories of Woolworths. Of course, it's very sad for all those staff who are losing their jobs just before Christmas and our hearts go out to them.

I mention "fond memories" of Woolworths as it was an interesting shop to visit for me as a child. There were all sorts of unexpected things that you could not buy elsewhere (or at least, not on the average high street.) Reading the press coverage of the last sale at Woolworths, it occurred to me that Woolworths was an aggregator of "miscellaneous stuff". In the age of the WWW (and eBay in particular) it's just not efficient to try to do this through "bricks and mortar" outlets. So perhaps this was inevitable.

Other businesses that rely on physical aggregation should find new business models.