I did not know that, thanks for that
I've only been a member of Jessops for 2 years, and only been into photography for 2 and a half.
That sounds like a lovely place to go a window shop 
Yes, it was a great place to browse, and of course you always came out with something. As you do. The World Camera Store I think it was called. The Warehouse Express showroom in Norwich is an exact replica, as is their main marketing plan using photo mags for on-page advertising and catalogue distribution.
The notorious Jessops Price List was based on a similar concept to the store, as it forced you to read it. Very hard to read and not very well arranged, you had to scour the whole thing to find what you wanted and guess what, you usually found a few other things along the way
And it was also cheap - the lowest cost was a cornerstone of Jessops philosophy in everything. Even Alan Jessop's car - he had a yellow Rolls then a big Merc when he got rich, but swapped them for an old (dented) diesel Passat he famously borrowed off a rep, and then drove every day for years.
Not many years ago, Jessops were known for two things: biggest range, at lowest prices. By mail order. They tried to expand that, successfully, with a small number of shops in prime big city centres, which could be serviced daily from the central warehouse. But then it was stretched too far, expanding into every town and city, often with two shops, which inevitably diluted both the range that they could offer, and the prices they could sell for. Initially, Jessops was strong enough to do that, but then the internet came along and changed everything. Having said that, few people imagined what the internet could do or what it would become. Internet visionaries were mostly branded as lunatics
It's easy to see it now, but at the time nobody questioned the wisdom of high street expansion and a guy called Tim Brookes who took over from the Jessops family had gold plated credentials from the city. Jessops was a perfect vehicle to grow through retail expansion, and build with lots of property value to boost a city floatation. Make a fortune and walk away, that was the plan. Tim Brookes did walk away, but without the fortune - attempts at floatation were disastrous.
And now Jessops is lumbered with all this huge property overhead (I think FITP is right, it's leased rather than owned) and the staff costs that go with running lots of shops. In the current climate they just can't get out of that, and the expansion programme never had an exit strategy (and you always need an exit strategy) - growing a business is hard enough, but changing direction or reducing big empires is extremely difficult unless you have planned it in some way, as we are seeing everyday now with older firms. I'm sure that the way to do good business today is blindingly obvious to the Jessops management, but given their starting point that is proving tricky. Basically, sometimes you have to go bust and start again
Sorry, I'm being boring now.
