Woolworths.co.uk
Encyclopedia
Woolworths.co.uk is an online retail company
Electronic commerce
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...

 owned by Shop Direct Group, formed in 2009, after the demise of the high street Woolworths stores. The online store opened on 25 June 2009.

Stores in Britain

Woolworths started out in the UK in 1909 as F.W Woolworth & Co, part of the American company
F. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...

 that was established in 1879. The first store was on Church Street in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 and sold children's clothing, stationery and toys from the very beginning. Woolworths took off in the mid 1920s with stores opening as often as every two to three weeks. By 2008 there were 807 Woolworths stores.

Woolworths return as an online retailer

In November 2008 Woolworths Group
Woolworths Group
Woolworths Group plc was a listed British company that owned the high-street retail chain, Woolworths, as well as other brands such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK and book and resource distributor Bertram Books...

 entered administration with Deloitte, and by early January 2009 all of its stores had closed. Woolworths' financial performance had been declining in the previous few years, and the events of the closure coincided with the financial crisis and recession
Late 2000s recession
The late-2000s recession, sometimes referred to as the Great Recession or Lesser Depression or Long Recession, is a severe ongoing global economic problem that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008. The Great Recession has affected the entire world...

 which was occurring at the time.

On 2 February 2009, barely a month after the last Woolworths stores closed, it was announced that the Woolworths brand in the UK, as well as the Ladybird
Ladybird (clothing)
Ladybird is a brand of clothing for children aged 0–13 years. Having been purchased in January 2009 by Shop Direct from the administrators of former long time owner/retailer Woolworths Group, Ladybird is ranked third overall in the childrenswear market, with an increasing market share of 5%...

 clothing brand had been bought by Shop Direct Group, who are the owners of companies such as Littlewoods, Kays and Great Universal. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

estimated that they would have paid between £5 million and £10 million for the brand. Shop Direct Group announced their intention to restart the Woolworths brand as an online retailer by the summer of 2009. The website uses the same URL
Uniform Resource Locator
In computing, a uniform resource locator or universal resource locator is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to an Internet resource....

 as Woolworths had used under the Woolworths Group, and as of February 2009 Shop Direct were seeking input from the public about what they wanted the site to be like. It is also believed that a catalogue may follow. Woolworths also launched an Easter egg website, called Woolies Wonderland, for Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 2009.

On 25 June 2009, woolworths.co.uk reopened with in excess of half a million products on offer. Users of Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 were told that they would be the first to be informed about the site's launch by Matthew Hardcastle but users were told on the morning of launch. News sources reported details of the launch the day before the site's launch.

Ladybird


Ladybird is a brand of clothing for children aged 0–13 years, that is sold by the Shop Direct Group on their Woolworths website. On 1 February 2009, Shop Direct purchased the brand and whole rights from the administrators of Woolworths Group
Woolworths Group
Woolworths Group plc was a listed British company that owned the high-street retail chain, Woolworths, as well as other brands such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK and book and resource distributor Bertram Books...

. The brand has a history which dates back to a trading partnership beginning in 1934 between the original firm Adolf Pasold & Son and Woolworths.
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