Whenever people are asked about the high street, there are certain stores that people immediately associate with the downtown experience and retail maintenance.

One oddity, however, is that one retail chain in particular that often comes to mind when you think of high streets at all has not existed for well over a decade, and yet continues to endure in the minds of those that remember it.

Whilst not originally a British company, once anglophile Frank Woolworth decided to create a store in Liverpool in 1909, it created a century-long icon on the high street, most famous in its late 20th Century incarnation with its bright red logos.

At one point, it was so successful that local council leaders saw the arrival of the Big W as a sign that their town or city had made it. 

It created a reputation as a cheap and cheerful store that had everything you could need. If you were looking for something in particular, Woolworths would be the first place to go, and it also became beloved by children for its toy ranges and famous “Pick ‘n’ Mix” stands of sweets.

One warning sign was that in 1997, Woolworths made the shocking decision to abandon their ancestral home and closed all 400 American F.W. Woolworth stores at a point where the UK’s Woolies stores were as popular as ever.

After being bought by Kingfisher in 2001 and seen as a sure bet, the foundations of their business started to crumble.

The first problem was that their two big selling points (price and product diversity) were challenged by pound shops and online retailers respectively, and Woolworths simply could not compete on both fronts with them, and trying to do so cost them their retail identity.

As well as this, the sale of physical music in the 2000s was in a precarious place, as piracy and online retail meant that record stores were struggling greatly before the rise of streaming inadvertently created a collector’s market.

Whilst it could have survived and potentially turned around given enough time and more positive market conditions, the 2008 financial crisis immediately put a halt to rescue efforts and led to administrators and a fire sale that whilst predictable caught everyone by surprise.