The demise of JJB Sports adds to Britain’s high street woes

The list of companies disappearing from the UK high street had one more victim this week with the demise of JJB sports and the loss of 4000 jobs. The number of high profile casualties over the last couple of years has been staggering as pressures have grown as a result of rising rents and other costs, reduced consumer demand due to the double dip recession and, most importantly, the rise of e-commerce.

Many other British retailers e.g. French Connection, Home Retail Group (Argos) and Mothercare continue to struggle on, relying on store closures and renegotiation of rents to boost waning profitability. Even relatively successful high street retailers like Marks and Spencer are delivering profitability way beyond their peak as the online shopping channels offered by Next, Asos and others takes shoppers from the traditional bricks and mortar sector. Charity and coffee shops now dominate many high streets in the UK and this is unlikely to change any time soon in the face of this e-commerce onslaught. Some failures more than others had only themselves to blame….JJB being a recent high profile example.

The list of bankruptices on the high street in 2011/2012 includes:

• Zavvi
• Habitat
• Woolworths
• TJ Hughes
• Allders
• Lombok
• JJB Sports
• Past Times
• Peacocks
• Blacks Leisure
• Julian Graves
• Clinton Cards
• Game
• La Senza

Contrarian Investor UK