Savastore owner Watford Electronics hits the financial skids?

[cooljhill]

i used to buy of watford electronics every couple of months i found them very gd and the way there counter worked was good you order and pay then someone brings it from the warehouse. its a pitty to see them go but it means that the computer shop near me is going to have more of my business the only shop i would never buy off is ebuyer.

im not trying to slag off watford e im just letting you know what i heard. as for driving prices down savastore didnt drive prices that far down it was ebuyer doing that and thats why the computer shop near me doesnt compete with ebuyer because they can afford to make an 8 mill loss a year however for the smaller better companys they cant even though the shop near me is a little more expencive i still go there because you can quickly walk into a shop and know the people who are there and get your items

[Andrzej]

Originally Posted by EasterEEL

...I don't understand the mentality of some of the posts here...

I think it is safe to say that everyone who bothered reading the detail is waiting for Ricki Raqeeb to call Bob Crabtree and bury the rumours

Everything else is idle speculation

Once Ricki makes his promised call to assure everyone, the story ends

Simple really.

[Ody]

Lets put a few rumours to rest as I know the industry well and have worked in it for 10 years.

1) Don't believe anything those "suppliers" say. The rumour mill is rifein the IT world and the stories get embelished from one phonecall to the next.

2) There are no administrators knocking on the door and they aren't 11 mil in debt.

3) As far as I know the only (and certainly main) redundancies have been their buyers. The northern office they closed was all buyers and also around 3 or 4 of the Southern buyers left. Mainly because they were on some of the highest salaries and if you have a cash flow problem you can't buy so much and thus don't need so many highly paid buyers.

4) My insiders tell me that Savastore have been doing well financially but their profits have been used on their other businesses and these have lost money.

5) I think they will restructure and sell some of those other businesses and PC brands and continue trading as Savastore and a few other Core businesses.

[Lenny_Nero]

I just posted in another thread, I dont know why it was started again...

I was only looking at the site the other night and said to someone that everything I looked at was not in stock with a 1~2 week wait.

This is a shame if they do have problems as I have used them since the early '80's, but I have thought they have gone down hill in the last year 18 months.

I can understand that if you have only used them in the last few years they might not look so good, but when I started to use them they had some very innovative stuff that could not be got anywhere else and the staff were very eager to help, (not something that I have thought the same in the last few years) and I could get the stuff delivered the next day if ordered before 4 pm something no other shop has ever done for me.

[EasterEEL]

I visited the Luton Office this afternoon to make some puchases from the savastore counter.

The counter office was closed as well as the main business reception office. There were no notices up or anything advising why the offices were closed.

Might be a coincidence, I can't remember the counter being closed on a weekday previously though.

EasterEEL

[DR]

From Savastore.com

Dear Savastore Customer,

At 3.30pm, February 7th 2007, Globally Ltd purchased the business of Watford Electronics Ltd.

As a result of this purchase, Savastore.com is temporarily closed for business. The site will reopen as soon as possible following a full review of both business and technological processes.

It is Globally Ltd’s intention to invest heavily in the underlying technology behind Savastore.com, and to provide a platform that will enable it to resume and expand upon Watford Electronics’ existing business.

Wherever possible Globally Ltd will assist and support all existing Savastore.com customers whose goods are not already covered by a manufacturer’s warranty.

Globally Ltd will endeavour to fulfil all unshipped Savastore.com orders. In line with Watford Electronics’ existing policy, Globally Ltd will not charge Savastore.com customers until orders have been despatched.

Globally Ltd would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the temporary closure of Savastore.com.

Yours sincerely,

Globally Ltd

[redlight]

It would be sad to if they did not re-open I have used them for years,even bought my 42" Plasma from them last year, and never had a problem even a couple of RMAs that have gone without a hitch. Whether people like them or not that is their choice but nobody should jump up and down with happiness if they do not re-open. Savastore are a competive Etailor(not so much recently) and competition is good as it keeps prices down for us. Less competition=higher prices and that is not good for any of us.

[Bob Crabtree]

We absolutely do not want to gloat about this - people are likely to end up losing their jobs and there is no guarantee that customers are going to come out of this well.

But, we did try to tell people as soon as we could about what we thought was going on at Watford/savastore.

One thing that looks to be very much up in the air is the situation with the Watford-associated Redten internet service provider.

That company's web site looks to be running normally (as indeed, of course, was the savastore site before 3.30pm today) so we can only hope that the other parties involved with that ISP are going to keep on keeping on.

[redlight]

Sorry Bob Crabtree that was not supposed to come across as a dig at Hexus itself. I just get infuriated at the kicking a man(or company) when they are down mentality.

[nichomach]

OK, Globally Ltd? I just did a quick check at Companies House:

GLOBALLY LIMITED
JESSA HOUSE, 1 FINWAY
LUTON
BEDS
LU1 1WE
Company No. 06083590

Status: Active
Date of Incorporation: 05/02/2007

Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Company Type: Private Limited Company
Nature of Business (SIC(03)):
None Supplied
Accounting Reference Date: 29/02
Last Accounts Made Up To: (NO ACCOUNTS FILED)
Next Accounts Due: 05/12/2008
Last Return Made Up To:
Next Return Due: 04/03/2008

Companies House

If it's the same company, they didn't exist until two days ago. It may be that this is a consortium specifically formed to sort out Watford (indeed, I hope for the sake of their staff that this is the case), but I'm catching a whiff of a Granville Special. It might be nice if they provided a link to a site with at least an "About Us" page or some contact details.

[Bob Crabtree]

Would be a strange co-incidence, given that the registered address, as I said in the latest story, is the same as for Watford Electronics and savastore!

[Bob Crabtree]

Originally Posted by PeterHills

I work for Watford Electronics (savastore.com) and we are still here. We are still trading to our customers as normal and there is no sign of receivers knocking at the door.

Peter,

Are you still working for the company now?

If not - then commiserations - but perhaps you'd care to give us your take on the situation.

If so, then, perhaps you'd care to give us your take on the situation.

[dfisher1]

Originally Posted by PeterHills

I work for Watford Electronics (savastore.com) and we are still here. We are still trading to our customers as normal and there is no sign of receivers knocking at the door.

Ahh, the infamous Peter Hills. Its great to see he has time to surf the internet. However don't hold your breath waiting for him (or the others in customer services) to call you back or reply to your many emails and registered letters.

I will be glad to see the back of them...customer service is woefully appaling and lacking.

I don't have any sympathy with the staff who frankly, provided an awful service. Perhaps if they worked a bit harder at customer services, they wouldn't be loosing so many customers to other companies and therefore they would be making a larger profit which could sustain the other loss-making subsidiary businesses.

Others are mentioning this is bad news for competition. Like one (relatively small) retailer closing down isn't really going to drive up the prices of the many thousands of retailers in the country? Of course not, Savastore closing down is not going to result in any prices being put up or lowered, in fact the industry will carry on as normal and you're wallet won't know the difference.

Do you really think this one store has that much of an influence on the electronics market in the UK? Perhaps if you were talking about Amazon or Dabs, I would agree but Watford??? Get real.

Good riddance I say.

[themissingelf]

Hi, I'm a new member - stumbled across this site and thread whilst desperately trying to track down some information about Savastore.com.

Basically I have an outstanding collection for an item that they sent me in error (i.e. they've charged my credit card but I have the wrong goods).

I also have an outstanding order with them which, under the circumstances, I'd like to cancel.

The most annoying aspect is not being able to get hold of anyone to exercise what I believe is my right to choose.

[Bob Crabtree]

Originally Posted by dfisher1

Ahh, the infamous Peter Hills. Its great to see he has time to surf the internet. However don't hold your breath waiting for him (or the others in customer services) to call you back or reply to your many emails and registered letters.

I will be glad to see the back of them...customer service is woefully appaling and lacking.

I don't have any sympathy with the staff who frankly, provided an awful service. Perhaps if they worked a bit harder at customer services, they wouldn't be loosing so many customers to other companies and therefore they would be making a larger profit which could sustain the other loss-making subsidiary businesses.

Others are mentioning this is bad news for competition. Like one (relatively small) retailer closing down isn't really going to drive up the prices of the many thousands of retailers in the country? Of course not, Savastore closing down is not going to result in any prices being put up or lowered, in fact the industry will carry on as normal and you're wallet won't know the difference.

Do you really think this one store has that much of an influence on the electronics market in the UK? Perhaps if you were talking about Amazon or Dabs, I would agree but Watford??? Get real.

Good riddance I say.

Sorry mate, but I have to challenge your simplistic view of whose fault the poor service was.

The bottom line can only be that it was management's fault - the people who worked there were merely that foot-soldiers put there by the generals to be mown down by machine guns.

I was at the ntl:Telewest>Virgin Media renaming event this morning and all the top knobs up on the stage, including Richard Branson, forceful made the point that the poor quality of customer service on the NTL side was something that could only be made good by management action - action that they said they had undertaken.

That included greatly increased staffing levels, providing far more and better training and introducing far better customer-service back-end systems.

Underlining the point about where responsibility lays, it was said at the event that 19 out of 20 of the company's top executives have been replaced in the last year.

So, it's my view that we shouldn't be blaming the foot-soldiers.

It's bad enough that some poor sods who might have had miserable existences working for Watford may now have lost their jobs.

So, please, get real and show a bit of humanity.

[Splash]

Has it been confirmed that people have lost jobs then Bob? Not picking fault with your statement, just wondering.