Thornton prices!!!

Be_Happy

We have a Thornton chocolate shop still left on our high street, although it calls itself a Thornton Outlet store now and advertises good discounts on Thornton chocs.

Bought a Christmas Selection box there yesterday at a discounted price of £5.39.

Was in Asda today and same box was priced at £5 AND was on offer at 3 for £10.

Hermia

The Thorntons where my aunt lives has also become an outlet. The last time I visited her there were massive boxes for £3 so I staggered back with several!

deanos

Ours is an outlet too

arcon5

Probably a case of the supermarket squeezing every penny out of them

vikingaero

arcon5 wrote: »

Probably a case of the supermarket squeezing every penny out of them

Thorntons have suffered greatly in the last few years. Most of the blame lies solely with them and not the supermarkets.

As a chocoholic I've never understood why people rave about Thorntons products. They are bland and a lot of their chocolates are the weird ones coated in sugar dusting and are too dry.

Thorntons opened too many stores in too many towns. Even though they were small stores the fact that they sold one product line is limiting.

One of my clients, a major wholesaler, had severe problems with product quality. Thorntons seemed to have stopped quality checking to save costs and in some cases of chocolates 90% of the contents were melted. Factor in customer dissatisfaction and costs of dealing with refunds and replacements and the wholesaler was going to tell Thorntons that any future stock would be on a pay per sale basis.

ThumbRemote

I have no idea why Thorntons do this. It's like they are in competition with themselves to drive their own prices down.

It's like their manufacturing section is desperate to drive their retail shops out of business.

They now sell Special Toffee in Home Bargains for 99p, bags of chocolates in the pound shops, boxes in the supermarkets - all for less than their own shops.

NBLondon

vikingaero wrote: »

Thorntons have suffered greatly in the last few years. Most of the blame lies solely with them and not the supermarkets.

.....

Thorntons opened too many stores in too many towns. Even though they were small stores the fact that they sold one product line is limiting.

I did a marketing case study when I was a student about Thorntons and we concluded that this was what was wrong with their strategy; they should have focused on a premium product that wasn't available anywhere else. At first, they were a bit above the likes of Milk Tray so it worked, but when they got into the supermarket they couldn't keep up the exclusivity AND they had to compete with Lindt. They could have been where Hotel Chocolat are instead.

vyle

NBLondon wrote: »

I did a marketing case study when I was a student about Thorntons and we concluded that this was what was wrong with their strategy; they should have focused on a premium product that wasn't available anywhere else. At first, they were a bit above the likes of Milk Tray so it worked, but when they got into the supermarket they couldn't keep up the exclusivity AND they had to compete with Lindt. They could have been where Hotel Chocolat are instead.

They could have been where HC are....if they had the quality. Have an HC chocolate (slab, or filled choccy) and then have the equivalent Thorntons. Thorntons is grainy by comparison. Not as bad as cadbury, but close.

lazer

The Thortans shops main trade now comes from the personalised items and people simply treating themselves when out shopping, with the chocolate fountain etc.

The market fro the shop has changed.

I still love Thortans chocolates!

athensgeorgia

The ice creams to die for though. Shame they only open the freezer counter in summer.

mickaveli2001

When they operate on the high street, they were always going to suffer. In fact any shop has suffered unless it's a bank, 99p shop or mobile phone retailer. All the rest have suffered. HMV, Boots, Next, Bhs, Adams, localized speciality shops for music and such likes. Thorntons as someone previously pointed out sold 1 type of item, and with the price meant that it was a shop people went into to get someone's birthday, or xmas. Not like Boots