Woolworths has best day of sales in its history

Woolworths made hundreds of support staff redundant yesterday, as the retail chain's massive stock clearance sale delivered the biggest single day of trade in its history. Deloitte, the administrator of Woolworths, has axed 450 staff - out of a total workforce of 25,000 - at its London headquarters and office in Rochdale, although there have been no redundancies at its stores and distribution centre so far. It is understood that some staff will receive redundancy cheques of just GBP385 (USD693.78) for each year of service. Shoppers have flocked to Woolworths’ stores to snap up bargains of up to 50% across its product range. Its 813 stores took GBP27 million (USD48.65 million) of sales, compared with GBP10.2 million (USD18.38 million) for the same day last year. Neville Kahn, the joint administrator at Deloitte, said that he expects that stores will remain open beyond Christmas and that staff will be paid in full. He added: "We have launched Woolworths' biggest ever sale, which is complementary to and will not adversely impact upon our efforts to sell the business."

planetretail.net