As you may have heard Jessops announced closed all of their stores on Friday 11^th of January. But what’s this got to do with a small marketing company in Newbury? I worked for Jessops for three years and the business was deemed to be in trouble only a few months after me joining (it wasn’t my entire fault). Though I am very sad to see them go, I do have my own opinion of contributing factors as to why the business failed.

I suppose ultimately the main issue Jessops faced was the price. The high street specialist wasn’t able to compete with online retailers or large supermarkets and therefore loss of sales.  However I do feel that there is a lot more to it and the business may have been saved through various methods.

Jessops vs the internet

Personally I think that Jessops HQ were out of date and didn’t adept to the current business world. Too much focus was put onto the stores and not enough onto the website –  yes I am fully aware this business is a high street retailer. But if your website can bring in more sales would that not help save the business? The website could have been bringing far more sales if it was used properly and optimised.  The Meta descriptions (the text we see in our search results) of the pages were very unimaginative and did not encourage you to visit the website. There are far more SEO tips they could have used but I think you get the point. The other online aspects that could have been improved are social media and a strong enough call to action.

At my time at Jessops I think I was a bit too young/not enough knowledge on the business world, but now I look back on some of my experiences at Jessops some of the business decisions seem very…desperate. Towards the end of my Jessops career, HQ seemed to find a new direction for the company to go in every month in an attempt to get more sales. Now I have some marketing experience and better understanding on business planning I can clearly see that HQ didn’t plan. It was very “slap dash” and very desperate and not properly planned. After I had left the business this may not have been the case and HQ might have picked up on some of today’s technology, but if they did is it not too little too late?

As the ex employee and a semi professional photographer I do feel very sad to see the chain go. Their prices may not have been competitive enough but if I needed to buy a camera (or anything camera related) then Jessops is the place I would go. All the stores that I worked in offered nothing but professional up to date knowledge on the photography world and our products.  To all the staff that unfortunately lost their jobs this weekend I am deeply sorry for your sad news and wish you all the best of luck. This blog contains my own views and not those of Appletree.