Early impacts on British Shopping

Some historians credit Woolworths with revolutionising retailing in Great Britain during the early part of the Twentieth Century. The American founders were certainly surprised at how quickly the British company came to outgrow its parent and become adopted as a quintessentially British institution. By the outbreak of the Great War the young new subsidiary had already begun to assert its independence, setting its own direction. American executives quickly 'went native', opting to remain in Britain for the rest of their careers.

There is no doubt that thirty years of retailing experience in the USA and Canada, improving the design of stores, fixtures and fittings and establishing a brand and a range of products all helped get the British infant off the ground quickly. Liverpool started out as the first of a chain rather than a one-off.

Ironically the publicity and the foreboding generated by the Daily Mail and the Draper's Record proved helpful in drawing attention to the first stores as being something different, if "un-British". In portraying Woolworth's as a circus the copywriters forgot how many youngsters dreamed of running away and joining up!

Another key to success was the decision of the founding Directors to anglicize the formula and to build a local range. Despite the "Threepenny and Sixpenny Stores" banner on the fascia, in the early days many products were either one old penny or two for threepence. The top price reserved for luxuries made of lace or fine bone china or (in the case of toys), presents like clockwork steam engines and foot-tall (30cm high) teddy bears.

The preponderance of penny items was driven out of necessity. The chain had no walkover and faced much stiffer price competition than its US parent. They were determined to offer the keenest prices in town. The Founder believed that the toughest rival would be the Marks and Spencer Penny Bazaar. The British management was instructed to show the public that anything M&S could do, Woolworth's could do better - and cheaper. Buyers were told to find plenty of products for a penny, which stores had to display near the store front and next to the cash register on each counter.

The philosophy was that long-term profits would be generated both by selling large quantities of cheap items and by persuading satisfied customers to trade up to luxury sixpenny items from time-to-time.

As the new Buyers negotiated prices with British and European factories, they were able to use the muscle of over 500 branches in the USA. Many of the early orders included large quantities for export across the Atlantic and smaller volumes for sale in-store. The buying power allowed them to offer well-made local goods at lower prices than people were used to. Some were standard supplier lines, while others were built to order from specifications that had already been proved in the USA. A few lines appeared strange and unfamiliar when they first went on sale. One customer looked at the Bathroomware in the Liverpool store on its first day, looked up and asked the Buyer "I say wot's this blawsted thing for? Wotta you do with it?"

One American tradition was adopted unchanged in the new chain. Every store had elaborate, brightly-lit window displays and updated them twice a week. Careful planning ensured that over time these showcased the breadth of the product selection and tracked the changing seasons. Each display featured large price tickets. The goal was to entice shoppers inside, in a country where the accepted practice was only to enter a store after selecting an item to buy from the window. Executives hoped that bright, centrally heated floors would seem more modern and appealing than the open-fronted shops operated by Marks and Spencer.

Frank Woolworth had found that customer concerns about product quality had proved a key barrier in his first stores in the USA. In response he had instructed every assistant to encourage customers to browse the displays, pick up and inspect any item. He also backed every product with a guarantee of satisfaction or money back. The same policies were implemented from the first day in Great Britain. They proved highly effective in encouraging sales, which in turn quickly put paid to the adverse media comment in the run-up to the first openings.

In North America Woolworth Syndicate Stores had been the first to extend the concept of fixed price retailing from an individual store to a chain. But in Britain there was plenty of competition. In Northern England the 6½d Stores had more than a hundred outlets, while Marks and Spencer was one of a growing number of Penny Bazaar chains, and had already been in business for twenty-five years. Woolworth aimed to offer a much broader range, including many items that had previously not been offered at fixed prices.

Quality sweets were offered for tuppence a quarter (112g for 1p or 9p/Kg) "from our hygienic factories", half pounds (225g bars) of slab chocolate were offered for sixpence as were two ham rolls for lunch, if purchased before 10am. Keen to comply with Britain's archaic laws of the day, the chain also bought sixpenny licences for permission to offer free glasses of water to customers buying meals in the store restaurant.

Woolworth stores offered a wide selection of goods for the home. The selection stretched far beyond the basic kitchen utensils and clothes pegs of the Penny Bazaars. The first stores offered full-size galvanized metal buckets and even bath tubs for sixpence from their displays. As a treat they also offered decorative items like small solid silver picture frames for the same price. Popular promotions in the 1910s included a selection of 18 carat gold bullseye rings and fully-functioning best-brass gas lamps, all offered for sixpence. This was 2½p at the time and the equivalent at today's prices of £2.11.

The Threepenny and Sixpenny stores quickly established a reputation for offering exceptional seasonal ranges. On the first day Liverpudlians were amazed by the variety of glass Christmas tree ornaments, garlands and decorations, which were offered for a single penny. Weeks later shoppers in Preston were greeted by large displays of flowering bulbs for the same price, and snapped up three Mascari (Grape Hyacinths) for a penny, or two Daffodil or Tulip bulbs for threepence. Other 'seasonables' included a wide variety of Chocolate eggs at Easter, tin buckets and spades and windmills for threepence in the Summer, and clothes, pads and pens for back to school. Price deflation over the next hundred years meant that, while many of the items were still stocked, their prices fell, particularly in the 21st century. A number of the lines offered for sixpence in 1909, the equivalent of £2.11, were just 50p or £1 by 2008.

The arrival of a Woolworth's store quickly started to impact local shopping. Rival shops frequently responded with lower prices and loyalty bonuses. Many employed the same techniques that Frank Woolworth had used against his competitors in the USA, including spoiling tactics on opening day when they sold large items at a loss. Woolworth razzamatazz ensured that every opening still drew a huge crowd.

Marks and Spencer's response was more subtle. They accelerated a move away from market stalls and open-fronted premises to enclosed salesfloors. They matched the American upstart's bright lighting and central heating.

Some rivals gave up without putting up a fight. The 6½d stores closed up before the Great War, unable to compete. Meanwhile a number of Penny Bazaar owners sold out to M&S, helping them to expand rapidly, particularly in the South.

But the largest impact and most visible impact was lower prices, as a number of luxuries became affordable for ordinary people for the first time.

In 1951, when one of the first employees retired from the Liverpool store after more than forty years service, she remembered the early days before the Great War as a very happy time. She told a reporter from the House newspaper, The New Bond  that "customers had never seen anything like it before. The wonder on their faces and their pleasure in saving so much, taught every one of the learners [Trainee Managers] that it wasn't just a shop, but a revolution."

The British government insisted on calling Woolworth's "a Bazaar", the Daily Mail fashioned the chain "a Circus" but the customers soon coined a name of their own, which was never used in the USA. For a century at the shops were quite simply "WOOLIES"!