Diemazz

British Home Stores Limited

Type	Private (Ltd)
Founded	Brixton, London (1928)
Headquarters	Marylebone Road, London, UK
Key people	Philip Green (Managing Director) Paul Coackley (COO) Barbara Gentles (Head of Finance) Darren Topp (Retail Director) Ian Allkins (Commercial Director) Rachael Lynch (Trading Director) num_stores = 186 Stores Nationwide
Industry	Retail
Products	Clothing, Homewares and Restaurant
Owner	Sir Philip Green
Employees	17,256 (2008)
Website	Bhs UK: Bhs.co.uk Tammy: TammyFashion.co.uk

British Home Stores or Bhs (formerly BHS and BhS) is a stalwart department store of the British High Street, selling clothing and household items (such as bedlinen, cutlery, crockery and lighting). Bhs competes on high-quality and value-for-money, aiming at a less affluent demographic than Marks and Spencer or John Lewis. Currently the company has 186 stores throughout the United Kingdom. The Company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but is now owned by Sir Philip Green.

History

The 1920s & 30s

The first British Home Stores shop opened in Brixton in 1928^[1] and copied the business model of the US-based FW Woolworth in that the price of goods was limited to a maximum of one shilling. In 1929 the maximum price was increased to five shillings which enabled the company to expand the range to include furnishings and drapery. The company became a public company (Plc) in 1931.^[2]

The 1960s

After the Second World War the company stopped selling based on price and started to offer goods with quality and value for money.

The 1970s

The company expanded in the 1980s including a joint venture with retailer Sainsbury's to create hypermarkets using the SavaCentre brand.^[3]

The 1980s

A downturn in business in the early 1980s was fought with a revamp of the stores and the selling of goods with higher profit margins. The company closed its only overseas store, in Dublin, Ireland, during this time. In 1985 the first overseas franchise store opened in Gibraltar.^[4] Such stores, not directly owned by the Bhs company itself, now operate over Europe and the Middle East.^[2] In 1986, Bhs merged with Habitat and Mothercare to form Storehouse plc^[1] and soon afterwards, the British Home Stores registered company name and branding across its shops was replaced with 'BhS' (now Bhs) and a new corporate logo. The exception was in stores that displayed a 'historic' fascia, such as Edinburgh's Princes Street, which continued to feature the British Home Stores name in its original Roman type etched into the granite shop front.^[5]

The 1990s: Takeover by Philip Green

In the mid-1990s the brand saw a further re-invention under guidance from retail design house '20:20'. The new look was showcased with the launch of the 'millennium concept' shopfit initially at the Grafton Centre, Cambridge during 1995. With its softer Bhs 'signature' logo^[6] and warm interior lighting the concept attempted with varying degrees of success to meet the needs of the modern, more sophisticated (female) shopper. During the late 1990s the stores which formed Storehouse Plc fell on hard times, Bhs and Mothercare being the worst affected. Following a number of years tough trading Sir Philip Green bought Bhs from Storehouse Plc in May 2000 for £200 million.^[1] He then changed the company from public (Plc) to private (Ltd). In 2002 Green then went on to acquire the Arcadia Group of high street retailers; which includes Topshop, Burton, Evans, Dorothy Perkins and Wallis among others, to form Britain's second largest clothes retailer, after Marks and Spencer.^[7] Alan Smith, chairman of Storehouse at the time of the Bhs sale commented "He [Philip Green] had a crystal-clear vision and strategy. He had the guts to do the deal, to make it work when nobody else thought he could."^[8]

The 2000s: Etam, Amelie May, Tammy & Return to British Home Stores

In May 2005, Philip Green, owner of Bhs, purchased Etam UK from their French owner, Etam Development.^[9] The Etam UK brands included "Etam", "Amelie May", and "Tammy"; of the three brands names included in the purchase of Etam UK, the girls` fashion retailer "Tammy", having already established itself as a well-respected girlswear brand "For Girls with Attitude", was the strongest brand in terms of sales and consumer recognition. For this reason, and to help improve young people's perception of Bhs as a whole, stand-alone Tammy stores were closed nationwide, and the brand was integrated into all Bhs stores across the UK from early September 2005.

Bhs façade in Broughton, Chester introduced in 2005. Stores such as this, which feature home furnishings alongside clothing ranges, have reverted to the British Home Stores branding.

In 2005, Bhs resurrected its 'British Home Stores' fascia more than 20 years after it had disappeared from the UK high street.^[10] The move followed the purchase of several former Allders at Home sites from the defunct department store chain. With exception to the Broughton Park site in Chester, these projects were designed to purely build upon the success of the homewares & lighting offer that Bhs stores currently had as well as tapping into new areas of business such as furniture, curtains, rugs, wall art & brands such as Denby, Maxwell Williams, Typhoon, Brabantia, Terence Conran & Jasper Conran. Chichester was the first of the Allderssite to be refurbished and by 2006 the success of the 'Homestores' rollout was extended through to the larger of the chain's high street stores including Watford, Bromley, Kingston, Milton Keynes, Metro Centre, Meadowhall, & Cardiff. By October 2008 the success of the Homestore format had rolled out to 23 dedicated Homestores, the most recent additions being Nottingham and Stoke on Trent.

Operations

Home shopping

The company launched its home shopping Web site on Wednesday 28 March 2007, with the ultimate aim of making all of its products available online. This was achieved in October and it is now possible to purchase from: womenswear, menswear, childrenswear (including Tammy and schoolwear) and home, lighting and furniture products.

Changes to store format

Some stores in the core format of Bhs are currently evaluating a new department layout; with some departments, including menswear, growing and some decreasing in size. With this ongoing change. Larger homewares departments will also stock new bedding, lighting and bathroom ranges developed for the British Home Stores fascia.

A number of sections within some of the main departments are being re-branded and are receiving new clothing lines to suit their (colour-based) themes. Tea Dance, 40s Romance, 40s Nostalgia, Classics, Core, Denim Shop, English Heritage, Heritage, Simply Chic, Winter Berries, Baroque and Petites (note the addition of the "s") among others (depending on season) for example, made-up the 2006 women's fashions department. Recently, the older boys (8-16) department has been revamped with new, more fashionable clothing ranges added across most stores within the company. This new department range is called "Flipback". Flipback's aim is to appeal youngsters into the rebel, punk, skater boy type-image.

Specialised departments

Bhs has a number of dedicated niche departments that include the school and wedding departments. In the wedding department a number of changes have recently taken place. A larger wedding range is now available in selected stores and parts of the range ("essentials") are available in other stores. The schoolwear shop ("Bhs School") department received a major design and range review mid-2006 and with its new "short, tall, big or small. .. we've got it all!" slogan and promises to "Fit the Nation". Additionally, each store is now customising their uniform offerings to cater for the most popular colour combinations used by schools in the locality.

Brand imaging, refurbishments and revamps

Bhs Goldcard

At present there are a number of corporate designs being used by Bhs, this is caused by the company's policy of refurbishing and applying new branding to the better (financially) performing stores first and slowly working down the store "league table" thereafter. Generally speaking those stores with the most up to date fascia (black and white) are among the best performing within the business. Those with the fascia prior to this are stores which are or have been performing fairly well. Stores which are still using facias dating back to the 80s and early 90s are generally the worst performing stores within the business.

Bhs are currently in the process of rolling out a revamped brand image for its stores. Gone will be the 1980s facias and the Bhs greys, greens and curved store signage from the 90's - in comes clean-cut black and white. Examples of this can already be seen by both the internal and external presentation of their newer stores, like those purchased from collapsed firm Allders in 2005 and better performing stores such as Milton Keynes or Kingston. This move appears to be quite a trend for high street retailers, with rivals Debenhams and Next already having a similar simple black and white corporate design.

Many departments within the stores themselves have recently received complete revamps themselves, creating a number of "themes" within each department. The most notable change however is the return of the iconic 'British Home Stores' branding, re-introduced after 20 years and used for those stores selling purely homeware. The British Home Stores wording is shown in the Futura typeface which both contrasts with the curvy script of the Bhs 'signature' acronym logo and harks back to the font's predominant use in historical signage. Again, all new store branding is presented in the new white-on-black livery style.

Christmas shop

Bhs is renowned among many of its customers for offering a fair value Christmas shopping experience - and the queues around the Christmas period speak for themselves. During the 1st week of October each year the full Christmas shop is rolled out in Bhs stores nationwide (giving that the Christmas cards normally come out earlier); in most cases this replaces a section of women's fashions until just after Christmas. During this period Christmas shop offer a wide range of novelty, gift, decoration and food items to consumers in addition to the usual Bhs clothing and homewares lines. Arguably because of the lower socio-economic demographic that Bhs targets when compared with M&S, the former utilises a reduction sale on its Christmas shop early on to attract shoppers. Marks and Spencer, on the other hand, relies on the image of the brand alone to sell at full price right through until Christmas.

Additional temporary staff are taken on from late September right up until December, then some often being retained on a permanent basis after this should the store have any vacancies to fill. Each year a new Christmas soft toy is launched, normally taking the form of a bear. Collectors have been collecting for over a decade. Christmas 2005 brought about Parker the Bear and Christmas 2006 had Bertie Bear and Toby Terrier. In 2007 Baxter Bear and Dexter Dog made an appearance. 2008 brings Benji Bear and Dylan Dog. By 5th October 2008 all Bhs stores had launched their Christmas Shop offer and in the flagship store in Oxford Street the event was marked by the first true Christmas window on the London High Street launching to celebrate the event.

Kelly Hoppen

Kelly Hoppen is an internationally renowned interior designer who has advised the Beckhams among others on their interior furnishings and decor. The KHome range offers two styles, "Classic" and "Glamour". Products include cushions, towels, vases, accessories, lighting, sofas, dining tables and chairs, side tables and headboards. Bhs association with Kelly Hoppen finished in the summer of 2008.

Management structure, offices and distribution

Bhs in the UK is split up into a number of regions, each region is headded by one RDE (Regional Development Executive), each store then has a store manager and assistant manager along with departmental, administration, loss prevention, weekend and visual managers. Bhs has a number of administration offices across the UK, alongside the company's main head office in Marylebone, London; offices are also located at Euston, London and Luton, Bedfordshire. The company's distribution centre is located at Atherstone, Warwickshire and is managed by Exel Logistics, web-based orders are also dispatched from this location by DHL. In April 2006 Bhs acquired a second site adjacent to the Marylebone office. North west house, opened on May 2007 after extensive refurbishment. Homewares & Christmas with support functions Marketing, Visual Merchandising, Human Resources, Internal Communications (Central Retail Support) and PR relocated into North West House while clothing divisions remained in Marylebone House.

Bhs International

The Bhs brand is used by a number of stores around the world on a franchise basis and although they are not directly owned by Bhs Ltd, products and support are supplied by the company. While Bhs have been offering franchises to interested parties internationally since 1985, the Tammy brand is now available as a stand-alone franchise in the international markets. Bhs was the first high street retailer to open in Moscow in 1995. The three million pound venture was the 'jewel' in the International portfolio and was quickly followed by an opening of a second store in St. Petersbergh. The move signalled a desire for additional sites within the former USSR and by 1998 stores opened in Uzbekistan & Kazakstan. The Middle East remains the key focus for the international business with stores across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Dubai and sites within Oman, Qatar & Abu Dhabi. By 2000 Bhs International included the Middle East, Greece, Tenerife, Gibraltar, & the far east. In early 2006 a new franchise concept "Bhs Kids" was launched in the Middle East. Bhs Kids carries a large number of best selling children's lines from Bhs stores.

Bhs For Sale

2006 - No Interest, Tough Climate Bhs owner Philip Green had been touting Bhs as being for sale late February/early March 2006, but this came to nothing. Rivals such as Asda and Debenhams were contacted regarding any interest they might have in purchasing the chain. Retail executives say that Green has mooted various combinations including joint ventures or outright sale, but in the current tough market most retail chains don't want to risk taking on more stores.^[11]

2007 - Suitor Search Resumes On May 30, 2007 there were rumours of talks with Icelandic retail investor Baugur regarding a sale of the chain and that Green was hoping to raise around £450m from selling the chain which would then be used towards the continuation of Arcadia's TopShop international roll-out. Analysts said Green was in a dilemma over whether he should sell the chain to rivals of his other Arcadia chains.^[12]

References

External links

• Bhs Homepage
• Tammy Homepage
• Bhs International
• Bhs UK Store Locator
• Bhs Credit Card
• Arcadia Group Homepage
• Baugur Group

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