The almost 100 year old retailer Woolworths is discovering that you can indeed live twice, the brand is being reborn online after it fell into the hands of administrators just before Christmas. There has been numerous questions over Woolworth’s relevancy as a brand, the store network saw much of its traditional high street market share eroded by supermarkets and online retailers – the name has been snapped up by the millionaire Barclay brothers’ company Shop Direct.
Woolworths is going to become an online brand working alongside its children’s clothing label Ladybird. Shop Direct, which also owns mail order businesses Littlewoods and Great Universal, is canvassing customer opinion via the Woolworths.co.uk site ahead of revealing how the brand will manifest itself on the web, so it is currently unclear exactly what form it will take.
As many as 80,000 people have visited the site after the publicity over the Shop Direct purchase, but there is no indication yet as to how many comments the company has received, but some sceptics are questioning whether something known primarily for its “pick ‘n’ mix” sweets could work on the web.
Images posted on the Shopdirect’s website fuses the Woolworths and Ladybird symbol into one area, sparking rumors about the online shop could be taking place. A source close to the group confirmed to Marketing Week that the Ladybird brand will be relaunched via Woolworths alongside a range of family-based entertainment products - shoppers will even receive pick ‘n’ mix bags of sweets with their orders.
Other retailers such as Borders UK, Toys R Us, Amazon and other entertainment specialists such as HMV will be watching Woolworths re-emergence into the retail market.
HMV has spoken about the new business and claims it is too early to tell whether the new ‘click-and-mix’ Woolworths will impinge on its market, but it does concede that its online-only rivals can be slicker.
