So what’s the story with YHA Adventure Shops? Their main London branch used to be in Southampton Row in Covent Garden, but they moved out some time ago (and I think Ellis Brigham moved in from across the road). Instead, they took a three floor shop on Wardour Street which is pretty odd.
For those who don’t know, Wardour Street is the meeja centre of London, and tends to be full of production companies, media stock outlets, and tape duplication facilities. Otherwise, it’s full of sandwich shops and places like Mezzo. What I’m trying to say is that it’s an unlikely place to situate a major retail outlet.
It’s certainly true that it’s about 100m from Oxford Street, but as far as shoppers go, Wardour Street is off the beaten track. Specialist shops can survive if they’re a destination themselves, but outward bound type shops probably do better in groups – Southampton Row in Covent Garden for example.
Anyway, they’ve been there a couple of years, and it was certainly handy from work, but this lunchtime I noticed that they were in advanced stages of shutting down. And it seems that it’s the whole chain, and not just this shop. Vast amounts of Karrimor gear was being sold off, and I couldn’t help but buy a pair of three season boots for around fifty quid (50% off).
I note too that their website seems to be down. Has the entire company gone belly-up? The retail group seems to be separate from the YHA itself, which I’m sure is secure. Indeed in recent times, it seems to have essentially become a Karrimor outlet.
UPDATE
Maybe I should Google all this before pontificating… I now learn that Karrimor went bust, and did indeed own the YHA Adventure Shop retail outlets. Mike Ashley owns something called Sports Soccer which I’m unfamiliar with, as well as Dunlop Slazenger, Donnay and Lillywhites.