Various dudes have bought up the Woolworth’s name with a view to bringing back the “much-loved” high street chain back to life as an internet brand. I understand that the name comes with a lot of equity, but what will it sell online? I’d venture to suggest that a large part of Woolworth’s ultimate failure was that it had come to stand for Not Very Much In Particular. You might associate Woolworths with cheap CDs, plastic gardenware, pick ‘n’ mix sweets, an odd assortment of clothing, books and basically general stuff. None of that made Woolies an essential shopping destination.
These days, “cheap CDs” means Play.com, “cheap clothes” means Primark or H&M so it’s hard to see what brand value Woolworths is going to bring to the net. I suppose the nearest equivalent might be, say, Argos or somebody – but they’ve got strong associations in particular markets, a well-established, hugely popular website and a back-up network of bricks and mortar stores. Woolworths won’t have any of that – just a big imprint on the popular imagination as “that shop that went bust.” I personally don’t see much future in it. Unless you can buy pick ‘n’ mix.
They could have some sort of awesome Flash pick n mix chooser – it would be so cool! Especially if it got delivered by a tiny man in a little golf cart