Not very interesting, esp. 4 the US guys, but just popped in2 Woolworths (a pikey pre-war old lady type of department store in the UK), and the album debuts at No.7.

Of interest however is the amount of promotion it was getting in the store - lot's of posters about being Heat magazine's Album of the Week (or Month - can't remember which), and the CD is in the main part of the rack as you walk in.....which is a MAJOR deviation from the standard promotion he's been getting 4 the last 10 years, so I guess that's nice

midasG said:

Wow! They still have Woolworth's in the UK? Those have pretty much disappeared in the States (they were "old lady" type stores here too!)

I like your Avatar. They've been my 2 big things since '87 2. Which were U a fan of first. Prince: when I heard If I was Your Girlfriend just before it came out as a single.
Man U: Just after they won those 10 games in a row at the start of the 85/86 season before Fergie came in.

Anyway I hope P releases some nice singles off this. I gave up the game of predicting single releases after 0(+> came out. Never got it right anyway.

JediMaster said:

Yup, still got Woolies. Really is a dump.

All the non-music shops tend to "guess" the entries like Woolies has done here. In WH Smith (which I would guess is the biggest newspaper/book shop chain in the country) they've got it at 14, I think.

omnithanos said:

Man U since 1982, although I remember watching the 1979 Cup Final against Arsenal on my Dad's knee when I was 5! P since 1989 when I first heard SOTT - and wow! IEWYG was the one that hooked me first (how weird!)

JediMaster said:

i was just going to say the exact same thing


i wonder if they still have Ben Franklin stores too likely, that was just a US thing in the first place, though....

midasG said:

Frank Winfield Woolworth m- 1852-1919

American merchant, b. Rodman, N.Y.

He established in 1879 a five-cent store at Utica, N.Y., which failed

The same year he started a successful five-and-ten-cent store at Lancaster, Pa.

In 1911 the F. W. Woolworth Company was incorporated (founded by Frank and his brother, Charles) with ownership of over 1,000 five-and-tens, and he became director of various financial firms.

F.W. Woolworth was the first five-and-ten-cent store, which sold discounted general merchandise at fixed prices , usually five or ten cents, undercutting the prices of local merchants. It was also the first store to put merchandise out for the shopping public to handle, select, and purchase. In earlier shops, customers presented the clerk with a list of items to purchase which were all kept behind the counter. The stores eventually incorporated lunch counters and served as general gathering places, a precursor to the modern shopping mall food court .

The concept was widely copied, and five-and-ten-cent stores (also sometimes called five-and-dime stores) were a fixture in downtowns in America for the first half of the 20th century, and they anchored suburban strip malls in middle part of the 20th century. The criticisms that the five-and-dime stores drove local merchants out of business would repeat themselves a century later, when discount stores became popular.

Woolworth had the Woolworth Building erected in New York City in 1913, the highest building in the world (792 ft/241.4 m) at that time.

On February 1 , 1960 , four African-American students sat down at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's store. They were refused service, touching off six months of sit-ins and economic boycotts that were a landmark of the US civil rights movement . In 1993 , the lunch counter was donated to the Smithsonian Institution .

In the 1960s, the five-and-dime concept evolved into the larger discount store. In 1962 , the same year as competitors Kmart (whose Kresge stores competed with the F.W. Woolworth five-and-ten stores), Target , and Wal-Mart , Woolworth founded a discount chain called Woolco. The chain closed in the United States in 1982 . It was more successful in Canada, surviving until 1994 , when the remaining 144 stores were sold to Wal-Mart.

The company also operated a number of other retail chains, including Foot Locker, Champs sporting goods, Kinney Shoe, and Northern Reflections apparel shops.

On July 17 , 1997 , Woolworth closed the remaining 400 of its F.W. Woolworth five-and-ten-cent stores. Analysts at the time cited the lower prices of the big discount stores and the expansion of grocery stores to carry most of the items five-and-ten-cent stores carried as factors in the stores' lack of success in the late 20th century.

Ironically, the same year, Wal-Mart replaced Woolworth on the Dow Jones Industrial Average . Also in the same year, the company changed its name to Venator. On October 20 , 2001 , the company changed names again; this time, they took the name of their top performer and became Foot Locker, Inc.

'Woolworths Limited' was founded in the United Kingdom in 1909 as a subsidiary of the American company of the same name. In 1982 it was acquired by Paternoster Stores Ltd, the forerunner of Kingfisher plc .

Woolworths Group plc was formed by the demerger of Kingfisher's general merchandise business, and began trading as a listed company on the London Stock Exchange on August 28 , 2001 .

Sources:

http://www.tutorgig.com/
http://www.encyclopedia.com/

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[This message was edited Tue Apr 20 6:09:21 2004 by langebleu]

Thanks for that info langebleu. I wonder if the Woolworths stores in the US were a bit tackier than Woolies in the UK. It's not really a discount store in the extreme in the Uk is it? Expensive for CDs and dvds, sweets, relatively cheap baby clothing i guess...

3bogs said:

Woolworth's really is an institution, isn't it?! Interesting to hear it started out as a cheap store selling tat - they've really stayed true to their roors, haven't they? Quality tat!

When I think of Woolworth's, I always think of somewhere to buy sellotape. Probably to stick together something I bought there the week before!

metalorange said:

Absolutely. I've now decided that Woolworth's rocks.

Although i only ever go there to get passport photos done (there's always, always a booth lurking at the back of every Woolies.)

3bogs said:

I've managed to get some decent CD and DVD bargains in 'Woolies' at sale time (2 for the price of 1 etc), but they sell terrible Christmas decorations from September 15th onwards, and they refuse to haggle over the price of lottery tickets.

I must make a note to start using the booth at the back of the shop and buy more sellotape.
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langebleu said:

langebleu said: