Had Halfords Had Its Day?

Halfords, the car parts and push bike retailer that has formed the corner stone of all sprawling retail parks across the UK. Selling an oddly varied range of products from in car electronics like satellite navigation systems, to push bikes, repair manuals and spray paint Halfords is akin to a jumble sale, very much like the Woolworths of the automotive world. So how much relevance does Halfords really have in today’s market place?

Once the virtual candy store for newly passed drivers keen to kit their car out with fancy car security systems and garish alloy wheels, Halfords was not just a shop but a hang out spot for those embroiled in the underground car modification subculture. This trend has long since past however with auto manufacturers realizing sometime ago that they could make vehicles to appeal to such a market straight out the box.

In any case, an economic climate in which people are struggling to afford to pay for the cars they already have is hardly a space in which retailers of fancy pressure washers can survive. But what about cleaning products I hear you cry, surely there is still a demand for car polish, wax and shamy leathers? Not really, the fact that hand wash businesses have appaered on almost ever street corner in the UK means that getting someone else to do the work is easier than ever before.

Ok, so what about pushbikes? Though Halfords does offer a range of quality, well priced bikes, it makes sense to but these from a place where staff will have knowledge of the product, rather than somewhere like Halfords? Rather than going to Halfords to buy a bike, you’d be far better off at specialist retailer like Evans where the staff know what they are talking about.

Halford’s USP has to be the fact that they are able to fit electronics into your car there and then, something that most people don’t have the confidence or technical nous to do so. For how much longer can it operate on this? Halford’s run in the UK retail market is surely coming to an end.