The futuers not looking to bright for the Number one in photography.

[PaulChubb]

Having a conversation on the train with an old frind who I used to work at jessops with. Hes still ther and basicly said that in one way or another...things are not looking to good.

Did a bit of reaserch and found this:

http://production.investis.com/jessops/regnews/rnsitem?id=1175083661nRNSb8963T&t=popup

Hence why thers no more web matching etc.

....stilll...closeing down sales are allways fun..

[Dotty.c]

hmmm not looking good for them is it.

[tonymidd]

Inevitable I suppose, like many others they did not move fast enough to make the most of the www. But closing a retail empire of a shop in every town, well almost, and relying on the web would have taken a lot of guts and fore-sight but it would have worked. Doubt if they'd have lost so much over, say, the past 5 years. Easy to say that in hind-sight.

[PaulChubb]

Well I can let you into a few little trade secrets,

Since they floated on the stockmarket they have continued to lose money due to a slightly less "customer orientated" appraoch towards sales.

Some were down the line they got the new cheif executive..Can anyone guess who he used to work for?......Yep thats rite, the Dixons groupe!!

Suddenly everything started to change and become all to familuer (iv workd for thema s well over the years). he then brought in a few old friends included the new finance director (also ex Dixons) and suprise suprise look what has happend.

Just like rats to jump from one shriking ship to another. Im aware that electrical retaile has tighter margins than any other sector of retail...but still, can you realy make the same mistakes twice and not expect things to go wrong?

[Mike D]

I feel saddened to see a shop like Jessops in such dire straits, I began my photographic career with my first real camera bought from Frank, the old man himself, now sadly passed on, there was just the one shop in Oxford Street, Leicester next door but one from the Princess Charlotte pub, where incidentally I had my first pint!!

The camera was a Zeiss Ikon Contina, and cost if I remember correctly £13.16.00 (£13.80) that was back in 1963, of course then Jessops took off some years later and the little shop although still there is no longer a Jessops, and of course the meteoric rise continued apace, Frank and his son Alan sold the business and that really was to me the beginning of the end.

Of course we were very fortunate in Leicester to also have another little shop in Belvoir Street, Cecil Jacobs who never quite made it to the size of Jessops but certainly expanded somewhat, further up Belvoir Street was Youngs another camera shop who were Rolleiflex agents, and that is where I obtained my best camera ever, a Rolleiflex TLR with with an f2.8 Planar lens, of course, I am reminiscing about past cameras from almost another age, but the Jessops news has brought the memories flooding back, tinged with some sadness, still we must all move with the times, and I have now fully embraced the digital revolution, though I still occasionally put a film in the Contina just for old times sake.

Belated Happy Easter to all the forum members


Mike D

[GlenJDiamond]

I bought a second hand Contaflex IV SLR camera - cracking good quality images on 35mm slide film. Elegantly built. sold it on a couple of years ago when I got a Nikon D70 - which although nice, is still a bit of a compromise!

£13-16-0 !!! I make that 3,216 old pennies - must have been a small fortune back in those days.

[randalls]

to be honest I gave up with Jessops when their Granby street shop turned overnight from a photography shop to a digital tinsel shop for kids........