Go Outdoors

[pete75]

Any retailer with a business model that depends on size, high turn-over and relatively low margins is only on the brink of profit at the best of times.

Chances are someone will buy some of the chain but many will go, but not outdoors.

Used to visit and buy a few things, mainly walking stuff about every other year.

Yep - that'll be why Karl Albrect Jr, inheritor of Aldi Sud and his cousin Theo Albrect Jr, inheritor of Aldo Nord are the richest and fifth richest people in Germany and Michel Leclercq owner of Decathlon is among the wealthiest people in France.

When it works it works when it goes wrong it quickly unravels. I saw a program about a woman. She had £20,000 and was thinking of buying a,second house. Then realised she could buy four and rented them out, they went up in value so she remortgaged and used the cash to buy some more houses. Kept repeating add until she had about 30. Then there was a slump and a couple of her tenants couldn't pay their rent. So she couldn't pay the mortgage plus she had a couple of houses she was doing up to rent but she could pay the builders they stopped work and demanded payment. Within six months all the properties were repossessed and she was bankrupt. A few years later she did the same again but cashed in before the next crash and made millions.

What she did to make millions was exactly the same as to go bankrupt. The only difference was the economic situation totally beyond her control. Go Outdoors were bought for £100 million four years ago if they weren't in great shape before this current downturn then their business model is enough to finish them.

Aldi seem to have weathered many slumps and booms in the 74 years since it was founded. The trial sand tribulations of an amateur propert developer bears little relationship to a business like that.

[Tangled Metal]

It's just a shop. If you like it sands it sells what you want you might but from them. If not you won't. It's a large store and I think that means it is unlikely everyone knows about what that sell. You might get specialism in the different areas but people move around. If you're specialty us footwear and you're put into clothing you might not be so keen or knowledgeable.. If you're working in a small outdoor gear shop there will be a lot less stock in a lot smaller area you're one of maybe two or three people so you have to know what you have in stock.

Personally I've shopped in 6 or more GO stores. Including one that got rebranded GO from blacks or millets. They've all had good and bad things about them. Whatever the case if someone doesn't know something that always seem to get someone who does?

As for the card, we get one every year usually a few months after it run out, we don't visit GO much because they're not local, nearer than Decathlon though. The card costs a fiver added to the cost of something that's usually cheaper than other shops in the area I also visit. I've worked out that I've never paid for the card and not saved more than that fiver in the transaction with their price matching plus extra 10% off. If you're looking at home afterwards for a cheaper price you're doing things wrong. A smart phone allows you to fund cheaper in store before you reach checkout. I've bought good Moon front lights at what worked out was half rrp before now because it was selling somewhere online in as sale plus they miscalculated because they often calculate 10% of their higher price before taking that off the cheaper price.

I've bought boots and shoes for 40% discount on any bricks sand mortar shops in the area. Tents that are very cheap for what they are then they throw in carpet and other extras.

They often don't have anything I want but if the do and I've got the spare cash they always save me money. Sure an eBay seller might be cheaper but I never buy in eBay because I seriously don't trust that portal. I don't really go there for advice because I know what I want anyway. Plus it used to be a sport of mine to play dumb in outdoor stores I am don't visit enough to get known in then let the retail staff try and con me. A lot of smaller shops do that and I left them know by the end they've made a mistake just before I leave the store. At least GO tend not to do that.

Personally if GO goes bust or get taken over by SD guy it'll be a pain. I'll lose my easy discount kit store. No disaster but not what I prefer. I hope it's just a negotiation position to reduce the rent costs or something similar.

[Paulatic]

The thing is that any fool couldn't. A reasonable amount of knowledge is required.

We had a phenomenal amount of rain on Thursday, Friday and in Sunday's thunderstorm.

BTW All farms are an agri business unless the chap or chapess is doing it for a hobby.

1 I can’t believe youve never come across sayings which might be total nonsense and wonder if you dissect and split hairs on everyone. I’ve another one which I say whenever I’m in Northumberland and see a road sign for Wark. I’ll say, "the poorest place in England I’ve ever seen". Why? You wonder. Well in my twenties I read William Cobbett and that’s what he said when he got there. I’m not going to reread it but I’m wondering if farming in Lincolnshire and fools is actually from Cobbett.

Three wet days doesn’t make a climate.

I fear you know exactly what I implied by agri- business but OK you’ve split that hair well

[Cyril Haearn]

Food business is different of course, it has been expanding and optimising for decades but often enough chains fail and are taken over

A few years ago t****o realised it had planned to open too many stores, some had to be closed before they were opened

[simonineaston]

True Story: my mum & dad used to move in the same social circles as the grande dame who was the Millet family matriarch. At dinner parties and wotnot she would introduce herself as "Mrs Mee-yah" just like Hyancinth off the telly show!

[simonineaston]

...and while we're on the subject, I know it's been a bone of contention - those of us who watch the retail sector have wondered for a long time - what exactly is the point of Sainsburys??
Answer: to keep the rubbish out of Waitrose - Boom, Boom!!

[whoof]

Yep - that'll be why Karl Albrect Jr, inheritor of Aldi Sud and his cousin Theo Albrect Jr, inheritor of Aldo Nord are the richest and fifth richest people in Germany and Michel Leclercq owner of Decathlon is among the wealthiest people in France.

When it works it works when it goes wrong it quickly unravels. I saw a program about a woman. She had £20,000 and was thinking of buying a,second house. Then realised she could buy four and rented them out, they went up in value so she remortgaged and used the cash to buy some more houses. Kept repeating add until she had about 30. Then there was a slump and a couple of her tenants couldn't pay their rent. So she couldn't pay the mortgage plus she had a couple of houses she was doing up to rent but she could pay the builders they stopped work and demanded payment. Within six months all the properties were repossessed and she was bankrupt. A few years later she did the same again but cashed in before the next crash and made millions.

What she did to make millions was exactly the same as to go bankrupt. The only difference was the economic situation totally beyond her control. Go Outdoors were bought for £100 million four years ago if they weren't in great shape before this current downturn then their business model is enough to finish them.

Aldi seem to have weathered many slumps and booms in the 74 years since it was founded. The trial sand tribulations of an amateur propert developer bears little relationship to a business like that.

Ok Fraser Group (Sports Direct) last trading year sales £3700 million net profit £116 million. Makes Mike Ashley a very rich man and he's been doing it for years. But a 3% net profit means external factors don't need to change a great deal to turn that profit into a £300 million loss. a few losses like that and the owners walk away but their personal wealth is separate to the assets of the business so they remain very rich.

[Oldjohnw]

Isn't GO JD Sports not Ashley's mob!

I get the two muddled. I was horrified when I thought Tiso had sold out to Ashley to discover it was JD not Sports Direct. The latter ruins brands: the once might Karrimor for example.

[pete75]

The thing is that any fool couldn't. A reasonable amount of knowledge is required.

We had a phenomenal amount of rain on Thursday, Friday and in Sunday's thunderstorm.

BTW All farms are an agri business unless the chap or chapess is doing it for a hobby.

1 I can’t believe youve never come across sayings which might be total nonsense and wonder if you dissect and split hairs on everyone. I’ve another one which I say whenever I’m in Northumberland and see a road sign for Wark. I’ll say, "the poorest place in England I’ve ever seen". Why? You wonder. Well in my twenties I read William Cobbett and that’s what he said when he got there. I’m not going to reread it but I’m wondering if farming in Lincolnshire and fools is actually from Cobbett.

Three wet days doesn’t make a climate.
CFDEEFED-12AC-4AE0-9956-35E51812D009.jpeg
DA79643C-904B-47BC-859B-615FAEE4B881.jpeg

I fear you know exactly what I implied by agri- business but OK you’ve split that hair well

Who said three days of rain make a climate? You said we needed some rain down here and I said we'd had a lot very recently. The way grass has grown up in the last few days shows it must have done some good.
If you think something is total nonsense why say it if you don't mean it?
Most farmers say they are running a business - it's you who is splitting hairs about that.

Farming here in Cobbett's day was very different with much less arable. Much of the fenland was still undrained and a lot that was still had large areas of washes which flooded in winter time and only used for summer grazing. When I was a boy there was still a lot of grazing land in the fens.

The heath then was almost all merely a sheep run. I guess at the start of the industrial revolution and with no wool coming in from places like Australia and mutton a staple of diet keeping sheep was quite profitable. Probably all Lincolns back then and they produce a massive fleece and a lot of meat.

A lot of clay land was difficult to work with horses or even oxen which I believe were still quite widely used when Cobbett was writing. I think much land was used for raising horses then. Horncastle horse fair was the biggest in the country and there were other big horse fairs at places like Brigg and Stow Green so a lot of animals would need to produced to keep that lot going.

[Cyril Haearn]

Just been reading George Ewart Evans about farming in Suffolk, he asserts that it hardly changed for two thousand years until steam and infernal combustion machines were introduced
A farm that needed dozens of workers now needs two. Where did the displaced labourers go?

[pete75]

Just been reading George Ewart Evans about farming in Suffolk, he asserts that it hardly changed for two thousand years until steam and infernal combustion machines were introduced
A farm that needed dozens of workers now needs two. Where did the displaced labourers go?

Presumably he'd never heard of the agricultural revolution which happened mainly before steam engines arrived. Along with enclosure it caused major changes in agricultural practices.
The reduction in labour on farms in the sixties, seventies and eighties corresponded with an increase in food processing. Round here a lot of ex farm workers got jobs in processing factories particularly those producing frozen food - there's four big ones within about a 15 mile radius of my house, all started up in the late sixties/ early seventies and expanded a lot. There's even a place employing several hundred people that does nothing but produce bagged salads.

Oh and most people working on farms were a bit more than labourers. A lot of the work requires a good level of knowledge and skill though not, apparently, here in Lincs where any fool can do it.

[Tangled Metal]

Isn't GO JD Sports not Ashley's mob!

I get the two muddled. I was horrified when I thought Tiso had sold out to Ashley to discover it was JD not Sports Direct. The latter ruins brands: the once might Karrimor for example.

Jd sports, blacks, millets, the once very good ultimate outdoors, and GO possibly among others are not quite as bad as SD. With the qualification that blacks group takeover of ultimate Outdoors turned UO into a cheap tat shop that Mike Ashley couldn't make any worse.

I used to buy a lot from the independent UO in Lancaster. I was such a regular that I once had to return to the shop after a purchase to tell them I was given too much change. I am got told it was ok he'd applied my 20% discount!! I used to ask and get 15% but being a regular they'd decided I on read worth 20%. Although I did spend a lot less there than Pete Bland sports, at that time my annual spend was significant part of my annual pay.

Anyway my point about the blacks group now it's they're going downhill in terms of quality of products sold and practises. IMHO GO is the better retail brand in their portfolio to deal with among all the branches and brands I've used. It's a big deal when they get to make blacks their premier outdoor brand, by making the others cr@p without trying to improve blacks!!!

[pete75]

Isn't GO JD Sports not Ashley's mob!

I get the two muddled. I was horrified when I thought Tiso had sold out to Ashley to discover it was JD not Sports Direct. The latter ruins brands: the once might Karrimor for example.

Jd sports, blacks, millets, the once very good ultimate outdoors, and GO possibly among others are not quite as bad as SD. With the qualification that blacks group takeover of ultimate Outdoors turned UO into a cheap tat shop that Mike Ashley couldn't make any worse.

I used to buy a lot from the independent UO in Lancaster. I was such a regular that I once had to return to the shop after a purchase to tell them I was given too much change. I am got told it was ok he'd applied my 20% discount!! I used to ask and get 15% but being a regular they'd decided I on read worth 20%. Although I did spend a lot less there than Pete Bland sports, at that time my annual spend was significant part of my annual pay.

Anyway my point about the blacks group now it's they're going downhill in terms of quality of products sold and practises. IMHO GO is the better retail brand in their portfolio to deal with among all the branches and brands I've used. It's a big deal when they get to make blacks their premier outdoor brand, by making the others cr@p without trying to improve blacks!!!

Decathlon is expanding in the UK and GO can't really compete with them.

I don't think Ashley ruined Karrimor - it was a firm called Cullinor Holdings that did that. From Wikipedia 'Within a day of the 1999 sale completing, new owners Cullinan 'stunned' the company by announcing plans for cessation of existing manufacturing (immediate ending eighty jobs, or a quarter of the workforce)[36][37] and the intention to change Karrimor to a sales, marketing and distribution business.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karrimor

[Oldjohnw]

Isn't GO JD Sports not Ashley's mob!

I get the two muddled. I was horrified when I thought Tiso had sold out to Ashley to discover it was JD not Sports Direct. The latter ruins brands: the once might Karrimor for example.

Jd sports, blacks, millets, the once very good ultimate outdoors, and GO possibly among others are not quite as bad as SD. With the qualification that blacks group takeover of ultimate Outdoors turned UO into a cheap tat shop that Mike Ashley couldn't make any worse.

I used to buy a lot from the independent UO in Lancaster. I was such a regular that I once had to return to the shop after a purchase to tell them I was given too much change. I am got told it was ok he'd applied my 20% discount!! I used to ask and get 15% but being a regular they'd decided I on read worth 20%. Although I did spend a lot less there than Pete Bland sports, at that time my annual spend was significant part of my annual pay.

Anyway my point about the blacks group now it's they're going downhill in terms of quality of products sold and practises. IMHO GO is the better retail brand in their portfolio to deal with among all the branches and brands I've used. It's a big deal when they get to make blacks their premier outdoor brand, by making the others cr@p without trying to improve blacks!!!

Decathlon is expanding in the UK and GO can't really compete with them.

I don't think Ashley ruined Karrimor - it was a firm called Cullinor Holdings that did that. From Wikipedia 'Within a day of the 1999 sale completing, new owners Cullinan 'stunned' the company by announcing plans for cessation of existing manufacturing (immediate ending eighty jobs, or a quarter of the workforce)[36][37] and the intention to change Karrimor to a sales, marketing and distribution business.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karrimor

Ok. But we do know that a once highly regarded manufacturer of outdoor gear which included polar trips is now almost good enough for school bags. Boots that would last for years fall apart in no time.

I have never been to Decathlon because the nearest is 60 miles away. The one thing I wanted from them online was out of stock or was only available in store.

I mainly use Cotswold or Alpkit online. I get footwear fitted at Tiso.

[Tangled Metal]

We used to work out whether C&CC was going to be worth joining by his much we save on the rare stay at their campsites and the saving at Cotswolds. However, most of the time we realised the 15% discount for membership only brought Cotswolds prices down to that of other local suppliers without any discount. If you are buying from Cotswolds then I don't think money is an issue and price is your main criteria.

Decathlon? Went to one in Brittany two years ago Pretty good but a lot of stuff isn't that good too. Went to a Paris branch ten plus years earlier and things improved considerably with quality. Back then cut example you'd easily be better off buying am Argos tent than a Decathlon one. Tent stitching was failing in the store!! Much better now I reckon. They're going the opposite way to blacks group I reckon.