Shoppers slam House Of Fraser for morphing into Sports Direct after Mike Ashley takeover
The billionaire sportswear boss bought out the troubled chain for £90million cash just weeks before its 170th anniversary
HOUSE Of Fraser shoppers have hit out at new boss Mike Ashley for turning the luxury stores into another Sports Direct.
The sportswear boss recently bought out the troubled chain for £90million, promising to turn it into “the Harrods of the High Street”.
However, shoppers have poured scorn on the stores’ transformation which has seen luxury brands pushed out in favour of tracksuits and discount goods.
The revamp has also left the shelves largely empty, with one Twitter user claiming his local House of Fraser had morphed into a Sports Direct outlet overnight.
The new look comes just weeks after Mr Ashley hinted that he had plans to turn some of the high end stores into Sports Direct outlets, with others being rebranded under his Flannels chain name.
Shoppers however weren’t impressed with what Mike Ashley has already done to the iconic House of Fraser stores, with many taking to Twitter to express their anger.
Basheer Woods tweeted: “As was the case with @LillywhitesUK, so begins the sad demise and destruction of the once great @houseoffraser, as @SportsDirectUK merchandise begins to take over the shelves like an aggressive virus”.
His tweets included pictures of rails of leather belts with prices slashed by up to 70 per cent, as well as sparse shop floors showing mainly sportswear.
Another disgruntled shopper tweeted an image of unboxed items strewn across otherwise barren shelves, captioning it: “A lesson in visual merchandising at House of Fraser’s flagship Oxford Street store.”
The image that caught everyone’s eye however was posted by Neil Thomson, who expressed deep concern over the brand’s transformation.
Alongside a picture of shelves stacked with dozens of boxes of discounted trainers, he tweeted: “So Mike Ashley has vowed to turn @houseoffraser into the ‘Harrods of the high street’ and ‘the biggest and most important thing House of Fraser is missing is luxury brands’. The picture is the Reading store which now looks like this, a branch of @SportsDirect UK”.
Shoppers also noted that dozens of high end brands that still remain on the shelves were heavily marked down, with some Ralph Lauren bags knocked from the £335 to just £80, as premium labels are fast replaced with activewear brands like Under Armour, Reebok and Puma.
Lamenting the change, Twitter user Han asked: “Remember when @houseoffraser felt a bit premium?”.
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House of Fraser went into administration over the summer, weeks before its 170th birthday, after stiff competition from online rivals and a slump in consumer spending knocked the firm.
At the 11th hour, the billionaire businessman swooped in with a £90million cash offer in a deal that saved 59 stores and 17,000 workers from unemployment.
The 53-year-old is worth an estimated £2.8billion and is also owner of Newcastle United.
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