Protests in Leicester

[Thracian]

Just noticed this because Lisa quoted it. This is an open question, not just aimed at Thracian. Does anyone know anyone who actually buys Wedgewood? We were talking about it and no one at work did. Do people still buy those little figurines and the like?

http://www.wedgwoodhotelware.com/pages/Wed...tality_FAQs.htm

Waterford Wedgwood has/had customers all over the world and particularly Australia http://www.waterfordwedgwood.com.au/index....5&Itemid=30

and the US http://www.wedgwoodusa.com/cust/service.asp

Like other major firms it was strong in the hotel trade and in various types of corporate catering situations.

Another target of the major potters was/is the cruise liners.

So it is clear how hard hit any producer would be when companies close and/or cut back on conferences etc.

Firms like Waterford Wedgwood also service shops in virtually very high street of the UK and in major cities across the world not to mention tourist destinations.

Having personally tried to get various ceramics products into the shop - even via NEC exhibitions - it always annoyed me what a closed shop it seemed to be with the majors cropping up in the most prestigious shops and few others getting a look in. But they had the name, the reputation and the substantial production facilities to guarantee delivery and a "quality" end product.

Since some majors have lately moved production abroad there has been a changed perception in some quarters and certainly among collectors.

One of the survivors, Moorcroft, have resisted the trend. They still produce by hand and in England and although I am no longer a regular customer of theirs I've noticed no less demand for their products.

Indeed of all the many products I have dealt in, Moorcroft remains one of the few I have never lost money on. Quite a tribute that seeing I once paid £2,800 for a vase which was not such a lot seeing as I've seen customers squabbling over an even more exclusive Moorcroft item that was priced at £120,000.

Wedgwood is probably most famous for its jasperware, mostly in blue, but it did produce figures as do Coalport - a company it later absorbed. http://www.coalport.co.uk/.

However, with so many figures being produced abroad by various firms and the problems of selling anything that is considered a "luxury" item, there seems to be far less demand for them just now, although truly rare out of production items will still find buyers.

The internet too has had an effect. Although companies protected their High Street outlets by only selling seconds from their factory shops they often seemed to underestimate the value of the secondary market in a whole lot of ways to the point where they virtually lost their support in many cases.

Once the internet was up and running the prices became regularised because there were too many of the same items on sale at the same time.

The "centralised" internet market made so many others all but disappear. The idea of "the hunt" all but disappeared too and the people who stocked the secondary market no longer trooped up to Stoke to buy because there was nowhere they could turn a worthwhile profit.

Just to give an minor example of the effect, my middle son and I used to wait outside Lorna Bailey's factory in Burslem at 6.30 am. It was our second port of call after The Stones market.

We would wait for the always shirtless Lionel Bailey to empty his first kiln of the day and behind us would be a line of trade customers from all over the UK, waiting for their turn.

My son and I would each fill an large estate car. We would trawl Stoke two or thre days a week to the point that we even bought a shop there to make life easier and improve storage. We'd be back to Lorna Bailey's within a week or two at the most. I now have a market stall instead of an auction. But I've not visited Stoke in five months. That's 20 weeks. Or a minimum of 10 estate cars full (from each of the five or six major outlets) . And my decision was reflected all over the country.

I've had some rarish art pottery up for sale since the middle of December. I've sold two pieces in a month of trying. Yes people like it. But no, they don't need it, they are no longer sure of its investment potential, many "homes" have gone minimalist, so they don't choose to buy it.

They've turned to other things with inevitable consequences for the factories, large and small.

[Thracian]

To be honest, I blame the Swedes. Do I buy overpriced crockery that is not to my taste, or do I buy something cheap, cheerful and wonderfully simple from Ikea?

I'd agree about the overpricing.

But that's what you get when property prices or property rents are so extorionate, when there is a minimum wage that has to be paid, when it is difficult to quickly trim staff when necessary without having to find wads of money in compensation, when City's are virtually cut off for two years while the council builds a massive new road, thus affecting business and when the nation is flooded with cheap products from low-labour cost countries thus reducing the local customer base.

But no matter.

We've all bought foreign and we've all contributed to the end of so much production in this country and the job losses that have become inevitable as a result.

Who knows. When the house prices have fallen far enough, when factories have re-established themselves with fewer staff on lower wages and when the foreign workforces have started to demand better wages, we might even become competitive again. But I wouldn't build my hopes and certainly it won't happen overnight.

Because not all governments would sit back and watch their production industries fall apart while stealing unjustified millions from the workforces with draconian taxes on petrol, alcohol, cigarettes and car tax.

[Fez of Mahrez]

Is there any chance we could channel all these words towards something useful? Could someone invent some sort of device that would power Foxestalk using these completely redundant arguments everyone keeps having in General Chat? We need to harness this power somehow.

[Hullfox]

Wedgwood are the latest big name to have gone into liquiidation. To be honest I knew they would go way before Christmas but Wedgwood has survived not just for 100 years but for 250 years. Very few companies have been around and weathered all storms for that long.

Two hundred and fifty years of employing people and being of service to everyone from royalty to the common man... a company that is truly an outstanding part of British history ... finally ground into the dust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedgwood

Whether someone else will dive in and take up the reins on the back of such an illustrious brand name remains to be seen. But I'd really question whether anyone could make a business work better than people who have had 300 years of experience, much of it on a global stage.

Whatever, it is yet another nail in the coffin of UK manufacturing and I truly wonder if there will be anything left of the "Great" part that is Britain by the time this Government is finished and leaves someone else the unenviable task of clearing up the mess.

They have made a loss every year since 2003.

They do not have a viable business any longer and have gone bust. They haven't been ground into the dust by new labour, they have too few products that appeal. And as for your tears over British manufacturing having another nail in it's coffin, I haven't been able to trace any of your posts that were complaining about the company shifting their production away from the UK to Indonesia over the last two years.

[Raj]

You know in Leicester near McDonalds and all the other shops there is like a big clock. How come every week there is always some different protest going on there? What's the point it's not going to do anything protesting about Palestinians in Leicester is it?

Its all cos of this man---

[stez]

If you read up a bit on the History of Israel and its founding, you may start to learn something.

For now, as you know nothing, I would keep quiet or continue to make yourself look like an unwiped arse.

classic cobbo!

but seriously DB11 and ASHLCFC look into things a bit deeper before you spout your half-spun theories