Shop Direct Group

Infobox Company
company_name = Shop Direct Group
company_
company_type = Limited company
company_slogan = Putting the customer 1st
foundation = 1 November 2005 (1923 as Littlewoods Pools)
location = Speke, Liverpool, England
key_people = John Moores (Founder) David and Frederick Barclay (Owners) Mark Newton-Jones (Chief Executive)
industry = Retail/Home shopping
products = Clothing Electronics Home furnishings
revenue = £2.1 billion
operating_income =
net_income =
num_employees = c.19,000
parent =
subsid = Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping Limited, Everyday Financial Solutions Limited, Home Delivery Network Limited, Optimum Contact Solutions Limited, CDMS Limited.
homepage = [http://www.lwsdg.co.uk www.lwsdg.co.uk/]
footnotes = [http://www.lwsdg.co.uk/ourbusiness/littlewoods.htm Littlewoods Business Infomation] Shop Direct Group (or until May 2008, Littlewoods Shop Direct Group;LSDG; or LWSDG) [ [http://www.unglobalcompact.org/data/ungc_cops_resources/DB2D25CA-0A4E-482A-B63A-A366DBAD6FEB/COP.pdf Communcation on Progress 2007] , URL accessed 4 April 2007.] ) is a British retail Limited company, based in Liverpool, Merseyside, England.

Formed from the merger of the "Littlewoods" and "Shop Direct" groups on 1 November 2005,cite web|url=http://www.fasttrack.co.uk/Fasttrack2002/migration/dbDetails.asp?siteID=4&compID=749&yr=2006|title=Littlewoods Shop Direct|publisher=fasttrack.co.uk|author=|date=2007|accessdate=2007-08-02] cite web|url=http://www.witness.com/main.aspx?pid=457|author=|title=Littlewoods Shop Direct Group Implements Witness Systems’ Impact 360 Workforce Management Solution|publisher=witness.com|date= 2007-01-09|accessdate=2007-08-02] LWSDG has its roots in the pools and retail business founded by John and Cecil Moores, and the home shopping business of "Great Universal Stores" (now called GUS plc), respectively.

Owned by Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay (95%) and the Bank of Scotland (5%), it is the largest home shopping company in the United Kingdom.

History

Littlewoods

Founded by John Moores and his brother Cecil in 1923, Littlewoods was initially a football pools company, which used its network of pools agents and printing company (founded in 1928) to establish itself as a catalogue retailer from 1932 onwards.

The success of the catalogue shopping business led to the opening of a "Littlewoods" high street department store in Blackpool in 1937.

In October 2001, Littlewoods became the owner of the "Swan" brand for electrical goods and kitchen equipment.

In November 2002 the Moores family sold the Littlewoods Group to the Barclay brothers for £750 million.

Littlewoods also owned the Index chain of stores.

GUS/Shop Direct

The home shopping/catalogues business of Argos and Homebase owner, GUS plc, ARG Equation (including Great Universal, Kays, Choice and Marshall Ward) was de-merged and bought by the Barclay brothers in 2003, where it became Shop Direct. Following clearance from the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, the two businesses formally merged in October 2005.

Formation of Littlewoods Shop Direct Group

In March 2005, following a twenty year history in which it had never made a profit, it was announced that part of the Index chain of catalogue shops was to be sold to Argos, and the remainder was to be closed [http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1462060,00.html] .

In July 2005 Associated British Foods purchased the 120 branch "Littlewoods" retail chain on behalf of its retail subsidiary Primark for £409 million. Some of the stores were converted into branches of Primark, and the remainder are being were sold on to other retailers. The "Littlewoods" name disappeared from the British high street in March 2006.

Following these disposals, the Littlewoods home shopping business was formally merged with that of Shop Direct (the GUS plc home shopping business), to form the United Kingdom's largest home shopping business. The merger was in reality effected in early 2004 when work started on a business optimisation programme, consolidating various business functions.

In May 2008 LWSDG announced it would change its corporate brand name to Shop Direct Group, to reflect the multi branded nature of the business [http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/business-news/2008/05/08/famous-name-on-way-out-100252-20879373/]

Associated Companies

As well as its core home shopping business, Shop Direct Group owns and operates a financial services business, formerly known as Everyday Financial Solutions, and now known as Shop Direct Financial Services, which is the consolidated brand under which Littlewoods and Shop Direct's finance arms were merged.

The Group's contact centre company, formerly known as Optimum Contact Solutions, is now known as Shop Direct Contact Solutions.

Home Delivery Network Limited [http://www.hdnl.co.uk website] is the Group's logistics arm, the result of the merger between Business Express and Reality, the former Littlewoods and Shop Direct delivery companies respectively. As well as delivering home shopping for the Group's brands, also delivers for Tesco Direct, Amazon, Dabs.com and other third parties.

CDMS [http://www.cdms.co.uk website] is the Group's direct marketing and publishing company.

Brands

LWSDG currently operates a variety of home shopping brands, consisting of the former Littlewoods brands and the former Shop Direct brands (Additions Direct, Abound, Great Universal, Marshall Ward, Choice, and Kays). A sports website, called sport-e.com was also opened by the group in 2003. The 'Littlewoods Direct' brand was formerly known as 'LX Direct' and 'Littlewoods Xtra'. The shop provides a range of items ranging from clothing and jewellery to electrical goods and appliances. Fashion advisors Trinny and Susannah are currently the faces of Littlewoods. They fronted Littlewoods when orders rose thirty per cent during its sponsorship of their ITV1 programme "Trinny & Susannah Undress" in 2006. Editors at The Times. " [http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/consumer_goods/article1288827.ece Littlewoods signs up Trinny and Susannah] ". "The Times". Retrieved 2007-02-15.] As of January 2007, they have also provided twelve pages of fashion advice within the Littlewoods catalogue and also produced a booklet called "The Golden Rules", which was distributed to all Littlewoods customers with fashion advice aimed to suit all body shapes. They have also compiled guidelines aimed at customers searching online, who are then able to type-in their body measurements and get instant advice on which Littlewoods clothing is suitable with accordance to their figure. The duo have also launched their own clothing range with Littlewoods.Littlewoods also own Littlewoods direct, Marshall ward, Additions direct,Choice and Kays.

ites

LWSDG occupies one of Europe's largest warehouse distribution centres from which it can deliver its stock to its customers. This complex, known to the company as Shaw National Distribution Centre is found in Shaw and Crompton, Greater Manchester. It comprises three former cotton mills and a number of state-of-the-art stock handling facilities, and is supported by strong geographic positioning and well served local transport links.

LWSDG owns another former mill in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham - Raven Mill in Chadderton, which it uses for processing returned goods. It also uses a third party-run site in Derker.

On 9 May 2006, the company announced the closure of three warehouses in Eccles, Wigan and Worcester. These closures have taken place, with all operations being transferred to their Shaw and Crompton site. Around 1,200 jobs were lost from the closures, but further jobs were created at Shaw NDC.

LWSDG has recently invested in a new state-of-the-art head office, Skyways House, a £31 million renovated aircraft hangar, situated in Speke, South Liverpool [http://www.merseycrossing.co.uk/html/news/5526_the_crossing.pdf] . The Speke site also houses a state of the art computer data centre. The group sold the original Littlewoods Head Office in Liverpool (SJMB) to Bruntwood Estates. They retained a single floor in that building due to lack of space in Speke, but moves planned for the end of November and early December 2007 will relocate the remaining staff to the Speke head office site. It also has a data centre adjacent to The Plaza (SJMB as was) and has other offices in Manchester although these are due to close by mid 2007.

Through its contact centre company, Optimum and financial services company, Everyday, it operates call centres in Aintree, Merseyside, Bolton, Burnley, Crosby, Merseyside, Preston, Sunderland, Newtown and Worcester.

Criticism

The company has attracted some criticism in recent years for poor customer service. Industry watchdog The Direct Marketing Association has "expressed concern" [http://www.dma.org.uk/content/Sch-Article.asp?id=1586] about LWSDG's customer care and many customers have posted negative experiences on websites such as Kelkoo [http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ctl/do/maxiMerchantReviews~100448013] , Ciao [http://www.ciao.co.uk/LXDirect_com__6296515] and DealTime [http://www.dealtime.co.uk/xMR-44069~MRD-44069~S-1] . (Some of these reviews refer to 'LX Direct', which was renamed 'Littlewoods Direct' in March 2007.)

Trivia

The National Football Museum in Preston, Lancashire, holds a Littlewoods Collection which chronicles the history of the Littlewoods Pools business.
Preston also being home to one of the Littlewoods Shop Direct Group head offices.

In August 2006 LWSDG closed the former Shop Direct head office Manchester Arndale and some staff relocated to the new Speke site.

References

External links

* http://www.lwsdg.co.uk - Littlewoods Shop Direct Group Official Website
* http://www.thecatalogshop.co.uk/ - 7 decades of catalogue shopping in the UK
* http://www.hdnl.co.uk/ - Home Delivery Network website