House of Fraser (formerly known as Bright’s and Dingles)
According to a Bournemouth Echo article published in August 2018, Bright’s, who would later become Dingles and then House of Fraser, was once one of the integral parts of Bournemouth’s shopping area. However, by this article’s publication date, the House of Fraser company had just exited administration following financial issues, and the future of the Bournemouth store seemed to be at serious risk of closure. Although the store, for now, has been saved from this fate, and its approach to consumer appeal has been appreciated and enjoyed by said customers, it’s prominence when looking at the retail in Bournemouth has significantly faded.
The history of House of Fraser in Bournemouth can be traced back to 1871, where a store named Bright’s opened on 9 Bournemouth Arcade, selling wool and other sewing supplies. By the end of the 19th century, the store would expand, offering a new variety of products that ranged from stationery to photography. This would continue until their takeover in 1960.
Bright’s would become one of the most prominent stores in Bournemouth, with the addition of photography becoming one factor. The advertising of Kodak’s newest cameras (pictured above) helped present Bright’s to potential customers as being modern through selling the newest innovations in picture-taking. The store would also appeal to the typical consumer through its interior and exterior. With their expansion into Old Christchurch Road, Bright’s would take advantage of the trend of Egyptian history and archaeology, and the exterior attempted to borrow certain motifs from the era such as mosaic floor tiles. In general. the inside of Bright’s stores displayed elegance and glamour, both through design and the fashion it offered. One example of this was ‘fashion parades’ that held the latest in luxury clothing, materials and even vehicles.
Bright’s were on the receiving end of numerous changes to ownership in the 1960s and 1970s. It was first taken over by JJ Allen in 1960, primarily a ‘house furnisher’ who held a prominent number of stores in the Southwest of England, as well as London and Leicester. JJ Allen themselves joined the House of Fraser group in 1969, for a fee of roughly £5m, which would be around £70m in today’s money. Three years after this latest takeover, Bright’s would be renamed Dingles, after the Plymouth department store that House of Fraser bought in 1971. In this era of the Bournemouth store, Dingles seemingly continued to appeal to the type of customer who held a focus on luxury and fancy goods and the money to spend on them, although a bomb threat in 1988 was surely a blow on consumer appeal.
Business for the store formerly known as Bright’s in the 21st century, particularly in recent times, has been troublesome. Dingles was renamed for a second time in 2006, following a general rebranding that placed the majority of House of Fraser owned stores under the name ‘House of Fraser’. But in the following decade, their prominence as one of Britain’s leading department stores would fade, and after becoming entangled in debt before a failed ownership bid in 2018, House of Fraser would enter administration. As part of the process involving solving the company’s financial issues, several stores were announced to be closing imminently, including the one on Old Christchurch Road. Then chairman of House of Fraser, Frank Slevin, said:
The retail industry is undergoing fundamental change and House of Fraser urgently needs to adapt to this fast-changing landscape in order to give it a future and allow it to thrive. Our legacy store estate has created an unsustainable cost base, which without restructuring, presents an existential threat to the business.
Frank Slevin, in a Daily Echo article published on 8 June 2018
Overall, Slevin believed the closure was necessary for House of Fraser’s survival altogether. Meanwhile, Nigel Hedges, a member of the Bournemouth Council at the time, was critical of the announcement, believing that people needed to ‘cherish’ department stores and that they were ‘using their thumbs to kill the high street’.
However, after a takeover by the Sports Direct group that same year, House of Fraser were saved from administration and the potential shutdown of the Bournemouth store was prevented. A Bournemouth Echo article detailing the ordeal asked members of the public for their opinions on the department store’s financial woes, with much of the blame placed upon the rise in online shopping. This new way of purchasing goods, with Amazon being one of the prominent examples, has been often claimed to be the main reason behind the decline of department stores and the high street in general. In response to this change, multiple companies have joined the trend of online shopping, with varying results:
Our findings show that high share… brands have greater-than-expected loyalty when bought online compared with an offline environment, and conversely for small share brands.
Peter J. Danaher, Isaac W. Wilson, and Robert A. Davis, “A Comparison of Online and Offline Consumer Brand Loyalty,” Marketing Science 22, no. 4 (2003): 461-476, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4129733
It might also be that, due to nationwide economic issues, the previously held view from House of Fraser that they should prioritise selling the newest and most expensive products is no longer sustainable in the modern day.
To conclude, House of Fraser in Bournemouth has experienced many changes to both their product focus and their own name over the last century, but recently they have experienced financial woe to the extent that the closure has once seemed imminent. Although the planned shutdown in 2019 was prevented, the continuous rise in online shopping may still prove to be end for the once prosperous department store.
Sources
Ladell, Alwyn. “House of Fraser (F J Bright, Bright & Colson, Ltd; Bright’s, Dingles)”. Accessed 17th January 2022. https://www.flickr.com/photos/alwyn_ladell/sets/72157632585615952/
Slade, Darren. “Bournemouth’s House of Fraser store earmarked for closure”. June 8, 2018. https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/16275381.amp/
“Brights to Dingles, looking back through the years.” Bournemouth Echo, August 29, 2018. https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/16602777.brights-dingles-looking-back-years/
“New hope for House of Fraser in Bournemouth.” Bournemouth Echo, August 11, 2018. https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/16411940.new-hope-house-fraser-bournemouth/
Danaher, Peter J., Robert A. Davis, Isaac W. Wilson. “A Comparison of Online and Offline Consumer Brand Loyalty.” Marketing Science 22, no. 4 (Autumn 2003): 461-476 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4129733
Further Reading