Game Over in Luton

Another closure in the Luton Mall. GAME the computer games retailer has closed with the company in grave danger

Suppliers of new games were so worried about the company's prospects that they were unwilling to deal with the company.

Most gamers today seem to buy products and services online.

Bad news for the Luton staff. The Mall branch is one of 280 to close. A further 333 stores remain in the UK.

Another Mall Store Closes

Another familiar brand has disappeared from the Luton Mall recently with the closure of Millets.

As a seller of outdoor wear, particularly waterproofs for camping and walking, it would be perhaps possible to blame the recent good weather !

Millets fortunes however have been in decline for a while. Blacks Leisure who own the company has faced a 9% decline in sales. A takeover by JD Sports has not worked out and maybe Luton just doesn't have enough campers and walkers.

Nearest stores are now Hitchin ( 7.5 miles away ) Hemel ( 9 miles ) and St Albans (9.5 )

Success on the High Street - it's a piece of cake

When I moved to Luton in 1990 the shopping centre ( then called the Arndale ) had two branches of Our Price, as well as an HMV. The Luton Mall still has an HMV but two GREGGS.

Greggs recently announced their final year figures. Profits are up by 15 % and there are 84 new outlets in the UK. This strong performance is based on cheap sausage rolls and coffee. Many shops have installed their own coffee machines.

The Wetherspoons Pub chain has also realised that the British love their coffee but are not always prepared to pay Starbucks (or Costa) prices.

Leisure Centre Membership

When the Luton Business Students (level 1) were doing their first piece of work on Vauxhall Leisure Centre we talked about the fact that annual leisure centre membership is less popular at the moment than pay-as-you-go arrangements.

This has been shown recently with a story reported in many papers. The ONS ( Office of National Statistics ) maintain a 'basket' of goods used to work out the UK Inflation figure.

A recent review of 'basket' has omitted leisure centre fees, whilst including the purchase of i-Pads and other tablet devices...

Use Newsbank Database to find stories on this....

Textile Manufacture in the UK

Image provided by :
tutor2u.net/.../manufacturing/textiles.htm

It was Fashion student who this week asked me in the Park Square LRC to help find some information on the decline of the British textile industry. It was an unusual request because the student wanted to look at this topic over a long period, and not just the state of the industry now.

There were several articles on Business Source Premier, but in a way these were a little too detailed. Newsbank database was better for this purpose. Many of the Financial Times stories included a historical overview of the topic.

Here are a couple of facts which charted the decline :
(a) As long ago as 1990 one hundred jobs were lost each day in the UK textile industry
(b) Compare this with the 1900's when 25% of the world's textile trade was UK based

My keywords "textile industry", decline and britain ( in three separate search boxes )

FAME to Live Forever

Recent survey of business librarians (stay awake at the back there) has found FAME ( Financial Analysis Made Easy ) to be their favourite database. I had always considered it to be mainly of use to Accounting and Finance students. Obviously the remit is much wider. Great, for example, to use it to track HMV's fortunes....

Here's a quoute from the survey....




In relation to the question I posed asking what financial database/s you couldn’t live without, of the 10 Librarians who responded to this questions eight said FAME.

Sports Sponsorship

Watching Liverpool win the Carling Cup Final on Sunday reminded of something that a representative of the drinks company once said about the marketing of their product.

Young men are interested in four things.

Carling sell them one directly (alcohol) and sponsor two of the others; music
(through venues like the Carling Academy)and sport ( eg the Carling Cup )

What can the fourth thing be though ?