Woolworths went into the third millennium as part of the Kingfisher Group, making around £100m a year in profit. The firm had a number of strategic initiatives underway, with the focus on enlarging the range for huge out-of-town superstores and exploiting the potential of the Internet at the height of the web revolution. The stationery and cards range which Kingfisher had architected in the mid 1980s continued to be a mainstay of the offer. At Braehead, Scotland they had pioneered a new value initiative, with lower prices on a value range which was delivering very encouraging results.

During the 1990s supermarkets and discounters started to encroach into some of Woolworths' key markets. To accelerate their growth they targetted the Buyers and experienced Store Managers from the High Street chain. This damaged some basic disciplines, and prompted an initiative in 2000 to restore standards and improve display.

In parallel Kingfisher launched a series of initiatives to update the Woolworths formula, including a new out-of-town chain, Big W. This gave space for the stationery range to be extended and prompted a reappraisal of the range.

The review highlighted that the UK had seen major lifestyle changes. Fewer people wrote letters or used a fountain pen, but many more homes had computers, colour printers and even fully-fledged offices which people worked from. New lines like A4 paper and printer cartridges were added to the range.

The initiatives were interrupted when problems at Kingfisher prompted a re-think and led to a break-up of the Group. When Woolworths demerged it hired a new CEO from Curry's. Trevor Bish-Jones launched a new, radical strategy.

The new man believed that the High Street chain needed to differentiate itself from the competition, targeting a specific group of shoppers and serving them well. He named the new strategy 'Kids and Celebrations' and aimed to provide the store of choice for mums and their young families.

As a result more space was given to Toys, Ladybird Clothing and Stationery. The new stationery offer centred on an extended range of Cards and Wrapping Paper on highly distinctive new, tall illuminated fixtures. Initially these were sold at full recommended retail prices, and were generally drawn from the middle to upper price points, delivering more margin, but also moving further up-market.

The Buying Team, led by Commercial Director Jo Hall, worked wonders within their brief, bringing the firm's stationery up to date. They built innovative ranges for the home office, using their expertise to source shredders, laminators and accessories in the Far East that sold at jaw-drop prices while making a good margin contribution.

The assortment of pens, accessories and stationery was updated to suit a generation of style conscious shoppers. It outshone the supermarkets and kept the High Street chain on many shoppers' lists.

But the strategy to increase 'basis margin points' left the door open for discounters and pound shops to undercut the chain on some of the basics. It also made it hard for the Buying Team to respond to aggressive price competition from the supermarkets, particularly at Back to School time.

The Kids Stationery range was also developed and enhanced, particularly after Jo Hall took over as MD of the Far East sourcing office, Woolworths Group Asia Ltd. Under her leadership Chad Valley Create products were designed in-house and taken from the drawing board into production in record time.

Building on the Kids theme in Clothing and Toys, the teams in London and Hong Kong used their expertise about character brands, to build cohesive ranges across, for example, nightwear, t-shirts, backpacks, lunchboxes and pens, pads and rulers.

In an increasingly commoditised market this helped differentiate the stores from the supermarkets.

Increased competition saw major price erosion on traditionally profitable ranges like pens, paper and pads for Back To School, as the supermarkets contributed to over-supply in the market and opted to loss-lead on these ranges to attract grocery purchases. During the same period more savvy retailers like Wilkinsons and the relaunched Partners and Rymans Chains followed the age-old 'pile it high and sell it cheap' approach that had once taken F.W. Woolworth to the top of the market. By the twenty-first century it seemed that the chain's only response was regular buy one get one free and 'three for two' promotions, which did little to address customer perception that Woolworths was no longer competitive.

Finally, in 2005, a new Commercial Managing Director, Tony Page, joined from Asda. The new man had the clout to challenge aspects of the CEO's strategy. Within weeks he evangelised the merits of selling higher volumes at lower percentage margins, addressing the value gap. He set the Stationery Buying Team on a hunt for basic products which could be sold cheaply to complement the more aspirational lines.

The new WorthIt! concept proved a big-hit with the public, with Woolworths customer traffic growing for the first time in five years. Over an eighteen month period the WorthIt! range grew from a hundred to more than a thousand lines around the store. But sadly the move came too late. For the first time in 130 years on 7 January 2009 Woolworth stood quite literally stationary, before ascending to the Internet.