What Every Woman Wants (retail chain)
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Fate | Merged |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Defunct | 1994 |
| Headquarters | Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom |
What Every Woman Wants (sometimes abbreviated to WEWW, and later styled as What Everyone Wants) was a British chain of discount stores. It was founded in Glasgow in 1971 by Gerald Weisfeld, and became a national chain in 1990 after being sold by the Weisfelds for £50 million to Brown & Jackson.[1] Now in the same stable as rival discounter Poundstretcher the brand had disappeared from the high street by 1994 in favour of the Poundstretcher and Your More Store brands.
The Weisfelds founded a new, eponymously named discount department store in their native Glasgow in 1994 within the old Goldbergs buildings (Goldbergs having closed in 1990), with a similar style and range of merchandise to their original WEWW business. However, the venture failed to repeat the success of the original and closed in 1999; the buildings eventually fell into dereliction and were purchased by Selfridges who have longer term aspirations to open on the site.
What Everyone Wants
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Fate | Administration |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Defunct | 2003 |
| Headquarters | Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom |
What Everyone Wants was a Scottish chain of discount stores. It was founded in Glasgow in October 1971, as What Every Woman Wants, by Gerald Weisfeld. The firm became an national chain in 1990, after being sold by the Weisfelds for £50 million to Brown & Jackson.[2] The 130–store business was sold to Tradegro in August 2002, but went into administration the following month.[3]
It went under numerous change of owners including Philip Green before Brown and Jackson took ownership at the end. When Brown and Jackson sold it to Tradegro Daan Venter took on the role as CEO and changed the name to Everyone Wants and used the slogan Value, Style and Quaility.
They eventually closed all stores during March 2003, after no buyers offered enough money for the administrator's to consider suitable. One of the first stores to close was the main store in Argyle Street one of the last was in Irvine, Ayrshire
Over 130 stores were opened in Britain, in towns such as; Blackburn, Leyland, Ormskirk, Hartlepool, and Swansea. Planned openings for What Everyone Wants and Brunswick Shoes in Accrington were planned, but never commenced. Their television commercials used the hook from the song from Status Quo from 1979, "Whatever You Want".