Woolworths.co.uk was an online retail website owned by

Shop Direct Group The Very Group is a multi-brand online retailer and financial services provider in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its head offices are based in the Speke area of the city of Liverpool, England. The brand was established in November 2005 as a re ...

, formed in 2009 after Shop Direct bought the rights to the name and website address of the defunct high street retailer

Woolworths Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to: Businesses * F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores * Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shops ...

. The online store opened on 25 June 2009, but it closed in June 2015, after six years, to be replaced by Shop Direct's existing brand Very.

History

Stores in Britain

Woolworths started out in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in 1909 as F.W Woolworth & Co, part of the American company that was established in 1879. The first store was on Church Street in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

and sold children's clothing, stationery and toys from the very beginning. Woolworths took off in the mid-1920s with stores opening as often as every two to three weeks. By 2008 there were 807 Woolworths stores.

Woolworths return as an online retailer

In November 2008

Woolworths Group Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to: Businesses * F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores * Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shops ...

entered

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

with

Deloitte Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of profession ...

, and by early January 2009 all of its stores had closed. Woolworths' financial performance had been declining in the previous few years, and the events of the closure coincided with the

financial crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...

and

recession In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general decline in economic activity. Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various ...

which was occurring at the time. On 2 February 2009, a month after the last Woolworths stores closed, it was announced that the Woolworths brand in the UK, as well as the

Ladybird Coccinellidae () is a widespread family of small beetles ranging in size from . They are commonly known as ladybugs in North America and ladybirds in Great Britain. Some entomologists prefer the names ladybird beetles or lady beetles as they ...

clothing brand had been bought by

, who are the owners of companies such as Littlewoods, Kays and Great Universal. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' estimated that they would have paid between £5 million and £10 million for the brand. Shop Direct Group announced their intention to restart the Woolworths brand as an online retailer by the summer of 2009. The website used the same

URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

as Woolworths had used under the Woolworths Group. Woolworths also launched an Easter egg website, called ''Woolies Wonderland'', for

Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...

2009. On 25 June 2009, woolworths.co.uk reopened with in excess of half a million products on offer.

Ladybird

Ladybird is a brand of clothing for children aged 0–13 years, which was formerly sold by the

on the Woolworths website. On 1 February 2009, Shop Direct purchased the Ladybird brand and whole rights from the administrators of

. The brand has a history which dates back to a trading partnership beginning in 1934 between the original firm Adolf Pasold & SonPasold history
Retrieved 18 November 2009 and Woolworths.

References

External links

* (Redirects to the Very site)
Woolies Wonderland
(Defunct) {{Shop Direct Group, No Collapse Retail companies established in 2009 Internet properties established in 2009 British companies established in 2009 Online retailers of the United Kingdom 2009 establishments in the United Kingdom David and Frederick Barclay