Firm closing

[Gladys]

1 minute ago, finlo said:

The amusements I'm on about was definitely in the TKmax area I recall it being quite a big place with a large cafe area, I also held the highest score record on the electronic clay pigeon shooting!

🤣 Well done you! 

[finlo]

Speaking of Barry Noble didn't he drop dead boarding a plane somewhere?

[John Wright]

2 hours ago, doc.fixit said:

I seem to  remember there was an Argos there as well?

 

1 hour ago, finlo said:

I don't recall Argos in there but I think it was previously Etams and an amusments before that Barry Nobles?) and before that I think it was Lipton's with an upstairs restaurant/cafe.

 

52 minutes ago, enbee said:

I think someone sold goods from Argos over herein the late 1990s. Argos catalogues we’re distributed. What went wrong I don't know. Possibly goods didn’t arrive. I was told by a senior manager that Argos would in no circumstances ever have a presence on IoM

 

48 minutes ago, doc.fixit said:

Didn't they operate from Index next door to Littlewoods?

Argos bought Index, which had a store within Littlewoods. It operated as Argos for about 3 months

[John Wright]

1 hour ago, finlo said:

I don't recall Argos in there but I think it was previously Etams and an amusments before that Barry Nobles?) and before that I think it was Lipton's with an upstairs restaurant/cafe.

 

1 hour ago, Gladys said:

No, I think Liptons (originally the Maypole) was  where the closed clothes shop (Dorothy Perkins?)  is, next to the also closed Thornton's.

Barry Nobles, I think was further towards Castle Street, around where Offshore Vapes is. 

 

1 hour ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Didn't he move into the Liptons' store when Liptons moved to Chester Street? I seem to remember walking up the steps into his cafe area?

 

58 minutes ago, BriT said:

No Barry Nobles was around where Thornton / Waterstones / Mountain Warehouse is. 

 

56 minutes ago, Gladys said:

That would agree with Albert.  I thought BN had a place opposite the old Leisure Centre in the mid to late 70s.  Where's Barry when you need him? 

 

46 minutes ago, WTF said:

barry nobles was down around opposite woolies ,    there were 2 arcades opposite each other next to the legs of man and another a little further down towards castle street/strand centre

 

27 minutes ago, finlo said:

The amusements I'm on about was definitely in the TKmax area I recall it being quite a big place with a large cafe area, I also held the highest score record on the electronic clay pigeon shooting!

Barry Nobles business had several premises in Douglas. The biggest was in the old Palais/Maypole/Liptons, with a cafe on the first floor. Barry’s IoM manager was Henry (?) Hudson.

[The Voice of Reason]

Barry Noble was from Nottingham. There was a cafe at the back of his amusement emporium on Strand Street selling ridiculously cheap drinks, like a cup of tea for 3p or something like that

[woolley]

3 hours ago, enbee said:

I think someone sold goods from Argos over herein the late 1990s. Argos catalogues we’re distributed. What went wrong I don't know. Possibly goods didn’t arrive. I was told by a senior manager that Argos would in no circumstances ever have a presence on IoM

This is correct. There was an agency agreement of some kind. A firm I had an interest in planned a similar arrangement with Index in the mid 90s, and I attended a meeting with Index management in Liverpool. Never came to anything and a short time later they opened the store within Littlewoods on Strand Street. Maybe we gave them the idea! Eventually some of the Index branches were sold to GUS. I know that Argos acquired the name and the internet brand. Wasn't aware that Argos ever took on the IOM shop. Must have been for a very short time indeed before they hightailed it out. Bit like Morrisons in Ramsey and around the same time?

[BriT]

1 hour ago, woolley said:

Maybe we gave them the idea! 

Argos was the stupidest business model going. The Freeman’s catalogue business with the additional costs of setting up 100 stores and 100 x delivery costs to deliver to those stores when you could have just posted stuff to peoples houses from a catalogue that you posted them.  

[KERED]

From MR:

Complex owners stepped in to ensure staff keep their jobs

(My mate is fairly complex, but he doesn't own very much)

[The Voice of Reason]

And wasn’t Barry Noble responsible in some way for the introduction of those domino video games in pubs? Those being a game of skill rather than chance (fruit machines being banned)

[John Wright]

10 hours ago, BriT said:

Argos was the stupidest business model going. The Freeman’s catalogue business with the additional costs of setting up 100 stores and 100 x delivery costs to deliver to those stores when you could have just posted stuff to peoples houses from a catalogue that you posted them.  

Except that’s not how it started, and this was all before on line ordering.

Argos was a metamorphosis from Green Shield stamps. Collecting bonus gift stamps/cigarette coupons was lucrative in the 60’s and 70’s before retailers introduced their own loyalty & discount cards.

Tompkinson, who owned Green Shield stamps saw that loyalty and discount cards would end the stamp business decided to use the stamp redemption shops into shops you could buy from.

Despits the ups and downs, and the mess Sainsbury made of things, they are the UK’s third largest merchandise retailer. 60% shopping on line.

Delivery costs to a local collection point, and the customer collecting from there, is far cheaper than post.

[woolley]

11 hours ago, BriT said:

Argos was the stupidest business model going. The Freeman’s catalogue business with the additional costs of setting up 100 stores and 100 x delivery costs to deliver to those stores when you could have just posted stuff to peoples houses from a catalogue that you posted them.  

 

1 hour ago, John Wright said:

Except that’s not how it started, and this was all before on line ordering.

Argos was a metamorphosis from Green Shield stamps. Collecting bonus gift stamps/cigarette coupons was lucrative in the 60’s and 70’s before retailers introduced their own loyalty & discount cards.

Tompkinson, who owned Green Shield stamps saw that loyalty and discount cards would end the stamp business decided to use the stamp redemption shops into shops you could buy from.

Despits the ups and downs, and the mess Sainsbury made of things, they are the UK’s third largest merchandise retailer. 60% shopping on line.

Delivery costs to a local collection point, and the customer collecting from there, is far cheaper than post.

Tesco was responsible for the mega rise and the fall of Green Shield. I daresay Tompkins couldn't believe his luck when Tesco jumped on board with his Green Shield Stamps in the 60s and made them a household name. For many years the supermarket was the mainstay of the scheme, dishing out millions of these "trading stamps" that Tesco had paid him for, and a proportion of them were simply junked and never redeemed. Literally money for nothing, so it was a superb business model.

The Tesco tie up set the company up financially with the network of redemption centres, as JW says, so why would you not develop the stamp redemption brochure into a sales catalogue and let the public come in and part with cash rather than stamps? Tesco ditched the stamps in the late 70s, which was a hell of a blow, but by then Argos had found its feet and the stamps became a minor part of the business on a long slow decline.

Before the online days it was pretty revolutionary. Now it's kind of gone full circle because Argos as part of Sainsbury now redeems Nectar Points.

[John Wright]

16 minutes ago, woolley said:

 

Tesco was responsible for the mega rise and the fall of Green Shield. I daresay Tompkins couldn't believe his luck when Tesco jumped on board with his Green Shield Stamps in the 60s and made them a household name. For many years the supermarket was the mainstay of the scheme, dishing out millions of these "trading stamps" that Tesco had paid him for, and a proportion of them were simply junked and never redeemed. Literally money for nothing, so it was a superb business model.

The Tesco tie up set the company up financially with the network of redemption centres, as JW says, so why would you not develop the stamp redemption brochure into a sales catalogue and let the public come in and part with cash rather than stamps? Tesco ditched the stamps in the late 70s, which was a hell of a blow, but by then Argos had found its feet and the stamps became a minor part of the business on a long slow decline.

Before the online days it was pretty revolutionary. Now it's kind of gone full circle because Argos as part of Sainsbury now redeems Nectar Points.

My recollection is that my parents collected them from petrol filling stations.

[Banker]

3 hours ago, KERED said:

From MR:

Complex owners stepped in to ensure staff keep their jobs

(My mate is fairly complex, but he doesn't own very much)

Stewart clague does own lots!

[WTF]

17 minutes ago, John Wright said:

My recollection is that my parents collected them from petrol filling stations.

mine too , and you had a little book to save them i  and when it was full it was worth something somewhere but i can't remember how that worked or where.

[Non-Believer]

24 minutes ago, WTF said:

mine too , and you had a little book to save them i  and when it was full it was worth something somewhere but i can't remember how that worked or where.

My father used to collect Embassy coupons from fag packets and saved them into just such a little book then when it was full (if you hadn't already died of lung cancer) you could redeem them for things from an Embassy mail order catalogue of goods.