No More Dixons. Website to Close Today

PasturesNew

The shops shut in 2006, now it's goodbye to the website.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/377455/dixons-website-shutting-down

Currys and PC World are owned by the same people, so it would make sense to not have a third one kicking around.

Graham_Devon

I believe the idea of dixons.co.uk was to keep the name going. Never really saw the point myself. They also have pixmania.

A._Badger

Good riddance! Dixons was an early byword for poor service and helped drive a lot of good independents out of business in its day.

YoungBusinessman

Dixons put a fair few independants in Scotland out of business. There customer service is the same as santanders- no one has a good word to say about it. Don't think they have made any money in a good few years. JJB Dixons and Woolies.... Who next? I say home base won't be far off trouble...

McKneff

I have had a few dealings with Dixons, couldnt fault them,

They are/were a sister company to Currys. Strangely enough always cheaper. In one case around £40 on a fridge freezer.

I had excellent customer service, always free delivery and contacted by telephone afterwards asking me if I was happy with the service.

Personally I feel sad.

A Badger, you need to be looking a lot more at supermarkets etc as well as on line electrical companies for driving the independants out of the market.

Pennywise

Never could understand why Dixons, Currys and PC World were owned by the same firm but set up to compete against each other. Completely illogical to me.

Usually when firms do this, each "section" has a different target market, but it was difficult to see the differences between these three as their product range overlapped or duplicated and prices for similar items (such as a specific printer) would be cheaper on one and then a few months later cheaper on their other - nonsensical.

It's inevitable that the B&M stores will have to start closing to get rid of the duplication. The amount of retail parks where PC World sits at the opposite end of the car park to a Currys is ridiculous.

If they want different branding then each brand has to have a different target market and a different product range. Competing against yourself isn't viable.

ruggedtoast

I have fond (ish) memories of going into the Dixons in town after school with my friends and looking at all the electrical equipment we couldnt afford.

Then again one of the reasons we couldn't afford it was because Dixons overpriced it all, they also shouted at you if they thought you were touching anything.

I remember them moaning bitterly when the law was changed allowing shops to discount electronics below RRP, citing a sudden concern for "smaller retailers". Really they were colluding with manufacturers to set unrealistically high RRPs which was responsible for putting a lot of independents out of business.

So yeah, good riddance.

CLAPTON

seems strange

-dixon had rubbish service
and high prices

but still put local dealers out of business?

A._Badger

McKneff wrote: »

A Badger, you need to be looking a lot more at supermarkets etc as well as on line electrical companies for driving the independants out of the market.

Not many camera, TV or hi-fi shops were put out of business by Tesco. Not many assistants in Dixons knew much about what they sold.

RUN_RABBIT_RUN

i too have fond memories of going into dixons as a young lad, looking at the computers etc

was great as a kid being in the 8-bit era of home computing, spectrum vs commodore vs amstrad and all that. felt like really exciting times, and dixons was a part of that to me.

the trick was never to buy anything, as that's where the problems started!

A._Badger

CLAPTON wrote: »

seems strange

-dixon had rubbish service
and high prices

but still put local dealers out of business?

They didn't. Toastie is displaying his habitual lack of understanding.

Dixons originally competed in the High St against traditional retailers and undercut them, thanks to the greater buying power of the Kalms empire.

Later, faced with uneconomical premises in those very High streets, the model struggled against out of town sheds with even lower overheads. Needless the say, the Kalms empire had those, too.

Which is how it ended-up with Dixons and Currys. In later years it tried to re-style the Dixons business model. As others have pointed out, it simply ended-up floundering. The High St it helped to kill died even faster, so its town centre stores were left stranded. When DSG moved it to the retail parks, it competed against its own siblings.

Now it's the turn of the retail sheds to die - cheerfully being slain by Amazon and other online retailers.

Comet, for example, is in such a mess it was sold for £2 (yes, £2 - all of it!) in 2011.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8879736/Comet-sold-for-2-to-former-MFI-owner.html

No flowers please.

It's simply evolution at work.