WHSmith
WH Smith PLC, trading as WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son), is a British retailer, with headquarters in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, entertainment products and confectionery.
For other uses, see William H. Smith.
The company was formed by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in 1792 as a news vendor in London. It remained under the ownership of the Smith family for many years and saw large-scale expansion during the 1970s as the company began to diversify into other markets. Following a rejected private equity takeover in 2004, the company began to focus on its core retail business. It was responsible for the creation of the ISBN book identifier.[5]
WHSmith is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Television[edit]
WHSmith founded one of the UK's earliest cable television channels, Lifestyle, which was carried on almost every cable system in the UK and Ireland prior to the start of Sky Television in 1989.[6] By late 1984, the company had bought a 15% stake in Screensport and from January 1986, took over the operations and management when ABC and R Kennedy pulled out.[40] Both channels were closed in 1993.[41][42]
Controversies[edit]
On 19 June 2009, WHSmith apologised after promoting a book on cellar rapist Josef Fritzl as one of the "Top 50 Books for Dad" as a Father's Day gift.[68][69]
In October 2012, WHSmith faced criticism from shooters after the sale of shooting magazines to children under 14 was banned, although it is legal for children under 14 to go shooting. The decision appeared to follow a campaign by animal rights activists. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) campaigned against the ban, including a 12,000+ signature petition. In mid-November it emerged that the restrictions had been removed from all UK shooting magazines.[70][71][72]
On 14 October 2013, WHSmith took their website offline because "unacceptable titles were appearing on their website". These were e-books with themes of abuse.[73]
The chain was criticised in 2014 for the condition of its shops, with both analysts and customers accusing the chain of under-investing in its estate.[74][75]
In 2015, an investigation by The Independent revealed that WHSmith and other airport retailers were charging VAT to shoppers travelling outside the European Union, then claiming the VAT back from the government and not passing the refund on to customers.[76] This was made possible by the practice of scanning customer's boarding passes at the till point – solely for the benefit of the company – which made the passengers unwitting accomplices in their own deception. After a public outcry, a customer revolt in which many refused to hand over their boarding passes, and an intervention by Parliament, the company confirmed in March 2017 that it would pass on the VAT reduction to customers spending over £6, who were travelling outside the EU.[77]
In 2015, the company was also criticised for the prices charged in its branches in hospitals, after media investigations found some items to be on sale at significantly higher prices than in high street branches.[78] In May 2018, WHSmith apologised after it was revealed that it had made more than £700 by selling single tubes of toothpaste for £7.99 through its branch in Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield.[79] The price was described as an 'error' and WHSmith promised that the proceeds from the sales would be donated to a local charity. The price was restored to £2.49, still more than three times the price of 80p charged in a nearby Tesco.[80]
In 2023, the company was found to have broken the minimum wage law, having failed to pay around £1 million to 17,607 of its workers. The company said that this was because of an error related to its uniform policy, with a spokesperson saying "Following a review with HMRC in 2019, and in common with a number of retailers, it was brought to our attention that we had misinterpreted how the statutory wage regulations were applied to our uniform policy for staff working in our stores. This was a genuine error and it was rectified immediately with all colleagues reimbursed in 2019".[81]