What's gone wrong with Woolies?

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How can Woolworths entice back the crowds of the 1930s?Woolworths used to be a stalwart of the British high street, but recent years have seen empty Pic 'N' Mix aisles and falling profits.

Caught between pound shops on one side and ever diversifying supermarkets on the other, new chief executive Steve Johnson is facing an uphill battle.

Woolworths has a network of 817 stores and sales worth more than £1bn but the chain is in the doldrums.

It has announced underlying losses of £90.8m for the first half of the year and its shares have fallen to 6p, putting its value more than £250m lower than when it separated from Kingfisher in 2001.

Johnson has unveiled his plan to turn the business around, with a strategy focused on strong Christmas sales and a back to basics approach.

"The last thing this business needs is lots of grand strategies," he says.

"What it needs now is some good basic retailing to fix some of the things that are clearly not right with the business, like availability."

But will the rescue plan work? Retail strategist Mary Portas, better known as Mary Queen of Shops, visited the Finchley Road branch of the flagging chain to give her advice on saving the stores.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH WOOLIES

There's no form of service whatsoever Mary Portas They don't stand for anything in the consumer's mind and I think they need to pick up a few really brilliant product categories and be famous for it.

They need to define what it is they are to a consumer so that they become top in the consumer's head: "I must go and buy x; therefore Woolworths is top of my list." I think they could specialise particularly well in homeware.

The layout is ridiculously confusing, even the lacklustre lower-end supermarkets do a better job. I want it to be signed - and to be able to look at the different departments. At the moment, I wouldn't even be able to explain to you what departments they have - it's a jumble.

In-depth buying. If you're going to buy a product: do it in-depth. They just have a bit of everything. We went in to buy a dustpan and brush - and there was nothing on the shelf but they had it in the stock room.

You didn't feel that they were showing it off in a wonderful way, say in the way that a Wal-Mart would in the US where you go in and its stacked with every type of product. If Wal-Mart are going to do a shoe polish, they will have every kind of shoe polish imaginable. In Woolworths it is just a bit, a bob.

It was dirty. That is fundamental.

Staffing. When you ask someone in B&Q about DIY, they know. There isn't a knowledge base in Woolworths from their staff and I think service is going to become more and more important. I did get the old adage of 'If it ain't on the shelf we ain't got it' - and they did have it - so stop that for a start.

I also think that people want to go away feeling as if they have learned something and feeling confident that the shop will have the answer to a particular problem. There's none of that here, there's no form of service whatsoever.