To lose one household name during a period of supposed economic recovery is unfortunate, but to lose three is careless. With the collapse of Jessops, HMV, and Blockbuster approximately 10,000 people face a very uncertain future. So what’s going on?
If you read the BBC’s reporting, it’s all just a case of bad management and outmoded business plans. For example, Ajay Bhalia of Cass Business School, City University London says:
The company, like HMV, failed to transform its business model early enough. When it did, it found a fundamentally altered competitive landscape where the platform model had destroyed the traditional retail one. Continue reading
Britain is a sleepy nation until a riot wakes it up. The hated poll tax trundled on until mass riots triggered its demise, taking Thatcher with it. Tax dodging on a colossal scale continued unimpeded until UK Uncut shut down Vodaphone and Top Shop in Oxford Street and made Philip Green’s £2bn tax-free dividend to his wife in Monaco a national scandal. Now a riot last weekend in Bristol against a planned Tesco score has put the overweening dominance of Tesco under the searchlight. Do we let Tesco (and other superstores) maraud the retail markets of Britain without check? If not, how do we hold them to account? 
Rarely can a Budget have disintegrated so quickly. Dixons have just announced sales falling by 11% over the last 11 weeks, and are now cutting capital expenditure by 25%. Oddbins goes bankrupt. The former Asda boss has predicted a “long-term trend of trading down”. HMV has just issued its thrid profits warning in 3 months: annual profits are now expected to be less than half of what the City was expecting only 6 months ago. M&S have announced its clothing and homeware sales have declined 6% in the fist 3 months of this year. Thomas Cook, H Samuel, Ernest Jones, Argos, Comet, Mothercare all report sales and profits tumbling. This collapse of consumer confidence is everywhere, as all the economic reports are echoing. 