What caused the sudden drop in sales?

[merryone]

The "unexpected" bit makes me laugh! Now I'm no business expert, far from it, but even I could see that offering Poundland products for ten times the price and then some, and preventing sales altogether was not going to work! They would have been better off scrapping Price Drop altogether and using the money saved to buy decent stock, or to offer proper reductions on postage, perhaps they could have introduced a multibuy system that worked on everything instead of selected items that had to be identical.

 

[Atticus]

I think the main problem occurred by switching to the Shop at Bid format, while still having the same products and presenters.

When you had the old Bid format, you could at least pretend the price was falling, that there was limited quantity, that people were getting a bargain etc. When they switched format and that novelty element vanished, you just had amateurish presenters trying to sell poundland products. When compared with QVC or Ideal World, the Shop at Bid format basically just emphasised quite how bad the products and presenters were.

(That and the last switch to Price Drop. I still think to this day that is one of the most insane things I've ever seen. A shopping channel which shows you the product, shows you the price, has the product in stock - and then refuses to sell it to you when you call up and buy).

 

[Keep Going]

ANY company whole sell tat and then lump a postage charge of £7.99 plus call charges, yet still ended up in millions of debt have been doing something far wrong somewhere or the money/profit wasn't going where it should have been, ie back into the company!!! Someone has some answering to do and I think that someone's wallet is bulging as I type this :wonder:

 

[Price Plunge]

Anyone with half a brain could work out there had to be a drop in sales with that stupid format on Pricedrop when people who actually wanted to buy an item couldn't as it was a loser! Every time I switched over I hardly seen a winner at all. There a bit of me thinks it was done on purpose to put the company into administration and the drop in sales line is the excuse

Most conspiracy theories are a load of rubbish but that idea does have a degree of merit. Think about it; you have a now-toxic brand (Bid) yet can't afford a necessary rebrand, (probably) most or all of their suppliers most likely still mistrust Sit-up despite a CVA and half the presenters need sacking but at least some of the existing management stand in the way of a total reorganisation, so why not force a collapse, cherry-pick the best presenters and grab their valuable Freeview slot to launch Ideal World Plus (or similar) instead? Of course being in administration wouldn't guarantee you get the Freeview slot but stranger things have happened.

 

[WifeSlashGoddess]

Selling items for 1p.

It was far too expensive for the quality of tat they were selling.........

 

[Trippy]

There was nothing sudden about it. Bid has been dying a slow progressive death for quite a few years now. This last year it's been on life support.

 

[mr tom]

so is there no chance of the Liverpool cruise club taking over the slot....

(best hour of tv ever)

edit: it was the breaking bad and the wire of shopping tv.

 

[Bennyxp]

All channels need a USP, and even though bid were losing money around 2009 onwards, by changing to 'shop at bid' they lost their whole USP. I understand that they needed to adapt the channels to try and go back into profit, but by copying channels such as QVC and IW when presenters used to contrast their business model saying how bid was better, meant that they would have needed a whole new target audience, as people watched bid for entertainment and end up buying products without intending to most of the time, and this worked to some extent. - Even though a dramatic change was necessary, copying that of close rivals was completely misjudged.

Bid's debts were wiped through the CVA, but as they would have lost so many sales in the last month accumulating more debt, I see it that by cutting their losses as it were now, they could pay their manageable debt back through selling assets such as props, bought products, machinery etc. and have more chance of getting some wages to their freelances. Yes, they could easily have carried on another 6 months accumulating more debt, but in the end, I personally think the owners done the moral and ethical thing by closing when they did so workers had a higher chance of getting back what they were owed.

 

[MrMobo]

so is there no chance of the Liverpool cruise club taking over the slot....

(best hour of tv ever)

edit: it was the breaking bad and the wire of shopping tv.

It was so funny wasn't it lol, It was like watching a Harry Enfield sketch. The fake telephone calls that let them know they could do a mega deal for us was the best bit.

 

[mr tom]

It was so funny wasn't it lol, It was like watching a Harry Enfield sketch. The fake telephone calls that let them know they could do a mega deal for us was the best bit.

the red telephone made me think that he was secretly bruce wayne