Littlewoods Shop Direct Group

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Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping
LSDG logo
Type Limited company
Founded 1923 (as Littlewoods Pools)
Headquarters Speke, Liverpool, England
Key people John Moores (Founder)
David and Frederick Barclay (Owners)
Industry Retail
Products Clothing
Electronics
Home furnishings
Revenue £2 billion
Slogan Putting the customer 1st
Website www.lwsdg.co.uk/
Littlewoods Business Infomation

Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping Ltd. (also known as Littlewoods Shop Direct Group or LSDG) is a United Kingdom retail Limited company, based in Liverpool, Merseyside, England.

Formed from the merger of the Littlewoods and Shop Direct groups around 2004, LSDG 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.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] 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.

A former Littlewoods branch in Barnsley, England
A former Littlewoods branch in Barnsley, England

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 [1].

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 are being converted into branches of Primark, and the remainder are being 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 involving creating merged business fucntion units and in moving the whole home shopping business onto a single set of computer systems.

[edit] Brands

LSDG 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'.

[edit] Sites

LSDG 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, in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, 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.

LSDG also owns a further former mill in the Oldham area - Raven Mill, in Chadderton, which it uses for processing returned goods.

On 9 May 2006, the company announced the closure of three warehouses in Eccles, Wigan and Worcester. These closures are planned for 2007, with all operations being transferred to their Shaw and Crompton location. Around 1,200 jobs are being lost from the closures, but 300 jobs are to be created at the Shaw and Crompton distribution centre.

LSDG 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 [2]. 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 have retained 2 floors in that building due to lack of space in Speke, 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.

In terms of call centres all are based in the UK and are in Burnley, Preston, Sunderland, Newtown and Worcester. All these call centres are moving onto the same computer platform, this process is expected to be completed by mid 2007.[citation needed]

[edit] Criticism

The company has attracted some criticism in recent years for poor customer service. Industry watchdog The Direct Marketing Association has "expressed concern" [3] about Littlewoods' customer care and many customers have posted negative experiences on websites such as Kelkoo [4], Ciao[5] and DealTime[6]. (Some of these reviews refer to 'LX Direct', which was renamed 'Littlewoods Direct' in March 2007.)

[edit] 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 LSDG closed the former shop direct head office Arndale and some staff relocated to the new Speke site.

[edit] External links

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