Wilko in Financial Difficulty and Could Face Administration
In the News
Sadly another major high street chain is struggling and could disappear. They are looking for investment and possible huge drops in rent to stay in business but going into administration is a real possibility.
My local store in Yeovil is in a part of the shopping centre which has the most empty shops so footfall in the store must be pretty bad.
I'm personally not that keen on Wilko nowadays. I used to find it quite competitive but pricing has been less competitive than its competitors I would say for the last 1 to 2 years. I personally prefer Home Bargains and would put B&M before Wilko nowadays.
Still I wouldn't like to see it go.
I do like to have a wander around now and again and I do prefer to get my painting & decorating stuff from them. I'd miss them for that if they went under but like a few others have said their prices aren't as competitive as Home Bargains. Where I live I have those 2 and a B&M all together so if I don't need DIY stuff it can be easy to ignore
I wasn't aware of Wilko financial difficulty. Years ago before Covid, I could buy a bag full of reduced items in all departments for less than a pound. I am going there tomorrow and buy more than I need to buy to help save it.
My local Wilco is the one on Yeovil. We used to buy gardening pots, the really large ones, as they are super cheap. i still find a lot of their things cheap. Their compost was always super cheap and judging how good my plants looked it must be good. It’s no cheaper than most other places now. What put me off was them closing the rear entrance and you can’t park out the front. I hope they don’t close
Hmm, sadly not a surprise - if my local is anything to go by Wilko have been having 'stock issues' for months and months on certain items and what stock they do have is starting to be spread out Poundstretcher style, which may not be the best thing. I feel for the staff - the ones in my local are great, which is likely part of why it's so busy in there, along with it being a one stop shop for items you may struggle to get elsewhere; I had to get a new modem cable recently (for example) - after looking around, my options were Wilko or Amazon, and Wilko was cheaper!
I notice some people have be mentioned B&M and Home Bargains - hmm, maybe. My local Home Bargains is a well run operation to be fair, but it's ridiculously out of town and is actually quite small (compared to Wilko) so... yeah. As for B&M - my local is MASSIVE, but somewhat out of town, and is (I have to say) a bit grubby and overcrowded I find. Not helped by the fact it has only 4 tills total, and you have to be practically queuing halfway down the store for them to open more than the 1 till. The B&M in the next town over though is slap bang in the middle of town, huge, shelves bursting with stock, and has plenty of tills too, so if I need something specifically from B&M I tend to go to it instead.
Thats a shame ! I love wilko online ...they have great deals ..hope they can be saved .
I always bought at Wilko but their prices are not very good they had posters on the window saying 100s prices reduced but even with that they didn’t compare with Home Batgind
Oh to have a Wilko, B&M or Home bargain, my high street is charity shops, coffee shops and barbers, it's a bus ride or couple of stops on the train for better selection of shops 
That's a shame our local wilko is always busy and I frequently pop in for household items. B&M and Homebargains are quite far out of town, so I don't use them as much.
I had heard this some time last year and have been noticing lots of empty shelves in my local.
You used to get some really good bargains in Wilko a few years ago. Sadly it has gone downhill since Covid. I have a Home Bargains and Dunelm near me and a new B&M store opening up in a few months. So I won’t need to travel into town to Wilko.
Wilko have great offers and they’ve brought back free click and collect. I recently stocked up on toilet rolls when a pack of Andrex was reduced from £3 to £1.25. I hope they start making a profit and save staff jobs.
Can't say I'm surprised with how much they have put stuff up my local one hardly has anything in there now I used to go in alot but don't anymore
When shelves start going empty that often means Wilko's supplier's have lost confidence in their ability to pay so they struggle to to get stock which then means less is sold and profits are less or losses are greater. These suppliers could be abroad and so might lack financial protection when a uk retailer goes under.
Anyway I hope they sort themselves out and keep going.
Saw the news today about Wilko and it doesn't look good. 12,000 jobs could be lost but also jobs lost for nearby shops to Wilkos that will face a reduced footfall for their stores and a knock on effect to profits. It can be a domino effect. The government just seems to let the market dictate what happens and as yet has come up with no policies that rebalances taxation with more onto online businesses. Online is hugely wasteful of resources, extra packaging, additional journeys and much more waste and un-necessary purchases as people can't see the true quality of products until delivered. It makes no sense for the UK economy or global warming to just let high streets be destroyed. Countries like Japan have healthy local stores because that is where taxation is less and people are in the habit of buying close to their homes.
BonzoBanana I agree with you 100%. The bottom line is the council's rents, etc. I got a lovely email from them/Wilko this morning thanking us for shopping there (i only shop in person).
I used to shop at Wilko quite a lot, but I don't find it that cheap anymore. So it's very rarely I buy anything from them.
Bad to hear such a news. After pandemic everything is going like this. Not a good sign
Be gutted if wilko closes its a good store and a shame for all those that work there
Unfortunately Wilko has been going downhill since Covid, prices increased, offers disappeared, and stock on the shelves starting getting less and less .Last winter our local store didn't even have any have heating on staff were in there with coats and gloves on. I hope I'm wrong but I think it's probably gone too far down now to be an attractive proposition for a buyer, it will probably end up being sold off in pieces to other retailers, with some sites closing altogether.
Mango4 ...One of my sister's neighbours Joy used to work at Wilkinsons years ago..
If Joy wanted an ornament for her house,she would break a bit off then buy the ornament for a few pence & glue it back together!!
True story,Joy worked in Wilkinsons next to Dixon Lane in the centre of Sheffield..
janphoenix51 That's basically theft and if a lot of people get up to stuff like that the business becomes unprofitable and goes out of business..... The margins at retail nowadays aren't great.
BonzoBanana ...My sister & all our family were disgusted..
We want businesses to thrive,not go under!!
Joy's husband Irish Pete had the cheek to borrow my sister's ladders clean the neighbours windows & then tell her if she bought him 4 cans of Beer he would do her's!!
My sister soon took her ladders back & told Irish Pete to do one!!
janphoenix51 It's pretty awful behaviour. I don't claim to be a saint I've watched a few pirate videos in my time etc and did shop lift as a young child but as an adult I would not shop lift. The figures are horrific with 8 million shop related thefts per year and close to a £billion in costs.
Maybe if Wilko hadn't had to endure such thefts they would be profitable today and not going down the pan.
I guess online businesses have a much lower instance of theft which makes them more sustainable. Maybe shop thefts are part of the reason online is so successful. Although saying that I bought a bicycle wheel from Amazon and I got a crappy old bicycle wheel that clearly someone had returned instead of a new item and Amazon hadn't checked it before sending it out to me. However at least an online business can just stop orders to that address but retail stores can't prevent repeat offenders it seems.
The soft option on criminals doesn't work and as a country we need to get a lot more realistic rather than idealistic.
I must admit it has gone downhill but I still shop there on a weekly basis. I do feel sorry for the staff, the ones in my nearest store have been there for years, the same ones.
Sad about this and not sure where I will be able to get certain items anymore unless pay at least double, especially as not able to shop in person
We don't have a Wilko near us. Where we used to live there was a massive Wilko. We lived there for 6 years and I never went in once.
So sad today as over past 30 years got hundreds of items from them and now can't go to physical shops will be a big problem to find some items at a good price
I went into the Yeovil store today and there was a poster saying administrator's sale on the window but to be honest there were no obvious reductions inside. I shall be keeping an eye on the store for the next few weeks. Any chance to go in and I will. I can see quite a lot of stuff I would like with reasonable reductions.
Let's face it the high street shopping centres are dieing out thanks to the high rents taxes ect the economy is also in a mess due to the cost of living. The UK is facing hard times for winter 2023 and all of 2024 where we live in maldon town in Essex. It's a ghost town. And Chelmsford is not much better. So many people want to shop online now days R. I. P THE HIGH STREET.
I was wondering why people are still posting 'deals' when Wilko have gone into administration and from what I have read they haven't found a buyer? Do we assume that the shops are still open for a short while?
tumblespots Wilko is in administration but will continue to trade for a short while whilst stocks are sold or possibly but unlikely that a buyer is found. Beware that they may not accept returns ,exchanges or gift cards. so if you are buying from them make sure it's what you want .
tumblespots Definitely worth posting Wilko deals as these will be genuine clearance items from a closure. However like a lot of these closure sales the administrators can be quite canny with only minor reductions at the beginning to get the maximum money for the creditors but it won't be long before reductions start increasing I guess. The big reductions come at the end on items less people are interested in of course which have to be massively reduced to sell.
12,000 people is such a huge amount. I'm sure a good percentage of the stores are profitable. I hope the administrators can create a package of profitable shops for a potential buyer. I certainly don't think the Yeovil store is though. It's in a dead part of town and the store is huge and there is loads of space around each aisle. I reckon it could hold 3 times the stock on the shelves if it had to. It seems too big a building for its stock even at the best of times.
Of course our local council bought retail units a few years ago as an investment not using tax payers money but actually borrowed. This would seem a ridiculous thing to do with the death of the high street but they did so and of course these investments have not worked out and so now due to high interest rates tax payers are having to pay the shortfall on returns on this property which will get worse now with Wilko closing which is one of their buildings so even more tax payers money being spent. I'm not sure which party is responsible probably a mixture of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats with a few Labour councillors thrown in. Their all unfortunately utterly moronic and not fit for purpose to be honest.
I'm not going to pretend I have the right ideas but investing in retail property just a few years ago seems extremely likely to fail. I would of thought on face value investing in private residential stock would be wiser, people always need flats and houses and the council have access to land that most people don't. A few investments there could have paid off very well and been a long term asset with a steady stream of rent. I'm not suggesting they would be subsidised rent but at full market value. If by chance they were rented to those on universal credit at least the rental payments would be going to the council rather than a private landlord.
I went into the Yeovil branch yesterday to buy some of their extra large pots. There was loads of stock of everything, hardly any empty shelves. Although there was a sign outside advertising reductions most things were being sold at the full price
Did you read how much money the shareholders received? It's the shop staff I feel sorry for.
Aww I'm going to miss this store 
I loved buying stuff for my room or the kitchen from there
I hope the Wilko brand itself doesn't disappear completely because it's part of England's high street retail stores history.
Anyone remember Woolworths? I miss that brand and their stores.
I also remember Safeway, but that seemed like it disappeared from the U.K.
So it did exist. 
Leannexxx I heard that on GBN and that sucks, but good for the employees if they remain hired.
PhilipMarc I'm happy it's gonna be a Poundland we be good for the area I live in as the local Wilko hasn't been doing good for years
I went into Wilko today and brought 2 pack of tights: £2.75 each minus 20% = £4.40. Next door BodyCare was selling the same brand of tights for £1.99 each! No wonder Wilko is losing customers.
Where I shop there is already a large Poundland opposite Wilko.
jam45 If it's going to be part of Poundland, then they'll merge it.
The only "problem" is still calling it Poundland when the prices vary. "Pounds Land" doesn't sound ideal either.
Went into the Chelmsford branch today, half of the shop was barricaded off as they had nothing to sell.
Felt really bad for the staff, they were all still really positive and friendly, despite the prospect of losing their jobs on Monday.
My local store is completely closed just a dark empty shop. The whole surrounding area is pretty grim in Yeovil. It was the only major store in the area and now gone. The rest are smaller retail units and I think there are more of those closed than open. We have liberal democrats in charge and they bought the wilko retail unit as a investment with borrowed money so now there is no one there paying rent and interest rates are much higher on these payments so we will have to pay for this stupidity in our council tax with less core services. Don't get me wrong the tories are equally stupid. Absolutely clueless individuals in my opinion same for most politicians whatever their level.
Really sad that Wilko has gone, was a classic british shop just like woolworths or bhs. These places just can’t compete with online though sadly.
jms19 They could easily if taxation was adjusted to benefit the high street and reduce the competitiveness of online. It's the government and councils that have destroyed the high street really. Online is hugely damaging to the environment too with many more trips, more packaging and products that people don't actually want when they get them but don't bother to return. Online should be about convenience but you pay more to get that so most of us would buy locally.
Our one has finally gone, so sad. The staff closed early and pulled the metal shutter down and stood outside for group photo, very sad for them.
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