CHIPS is back: The action plan

CHIPS has struck back following the collapse of Chipsworld in July this year.

In reality, the indie retail giant never went anywhere as CHIPS Franchise Ltd – the sister company which looks after 13 franchised stores – was still operational.

But now joint MDs Don McCabe and Nik Agar have formed a new company – Darkplains Limited – and reopened seven CHIPS sites, plus a new head office and warehouse facility.

The firm is also working on relaunching its website. However five outlets remain closed – Middlesbrough, Letchworth, Kirkham, Edinburgh and Redcar.

In total, there are 20 CHIPS-branded stores nationwide.
We have managed to reopen some of the stores,” McCabe told MCV. It’s a dark cloud with a silver lining. In the end Chipsworld was forced to go into liquidation, I’d much rather have fought through it all and paid everybody off. Thankfully very few suppliers were affected, and the whole situation allowed us to reorganise.”

Chipsworld went into liquidation in July this year having struggled with ‘mounting unpaid debts and the recession.’ But only five of the shops were actually leased or owned by Chipsworld. This meant the two MDs were able to reopen some of the stores.

DISTRIBUTION MOVE ON THE CARDS, TOO

CHIPS has also opened its own warehouse, MCV can reveal.

The new facility is being used to distribute products not just to CHIPS’ network of stores, but other retailers as well.

We now have a warehouse so we can do some small scale distribution,” said McCabe. Upon saying that, we are not going to challenge Centresoft and our own stores come first.”