As Bunnings calls time on its disastrous attempt to crack the UK, we look at other international retailers that failed to make waves in Blighty. 

Best Buy

It was a short sojourn for US electricals giant Best Buy, which set up shop in the UK in April 2010. The retailer entered the UK via a joint venture with Carphone Warehouse and started off all guns blazing, vowing to open 100 big box stores by 2013.

Best Buy

Best Buy store in the US

However, after making a whopping £62.2m loss in its first full year of UK operations, it beat a retreat and closed the 11 UK stores it had opened by January 2012.

Andrew Harrison, now chairman of Carphone Warehouse and who led Best Buy Europe, said the decision was driven by the mobile phone retailer’s move to focus on smartphones and tablets. He said at the time: “It was the technology cycle that spurred us to do something. There is a nice saying in America: ‘Skate where the puck is going to be – not where it is at the moment’”

However, retail-watchers said its failure was down to its lack of a differentiated offer and little marketing of the brand, not to mention the tough consumer environment and valiant defence staged by UK market leader Dixons, with which Carphone Warehouse later merged.

Ilva

It was an equally short stay for Danish furniture retailer Ilva, which arrived to much fanfare in 2006.

The retailer, which was led by former B&Q boss Martin Toogood, opened in Thurrock, Essex in 2006 and followed this with stores in Manchester and Gateshead.

Dubbed the grown-up Ikea, the Danish retailer aimed to emulate its Swedish rival’s success in the UK.

Its glass-fronted stores were notably different from Ikea but its higher prices put shoppers off. Ilva was said to have lost £2.33 for every £1 spent in its stores in 2007.

The UK arm was sold to Icelandic corporation Lagerinn in 2007, which blamed poor trading for its “strategic withdrawal” from the market a year later.

Sephora

Sephora may be one of the world’s most successful and sought-after beauty retailers, but its assault on the UK market in 1999 – two years after it was acquired by current owner LVMH – was far from successful.

Sephora

The retailer spent six years in the UK and opened nine stores before it boomeranged out of the market in 2005.

At the time, Sephora said it was exiting the UK because of the lack of property sites that could accommodate its “strict” store layout, although industry pundits said the retailer was felled by higher than anticipated property costs.

The beauty behemoth also struggled to win market share from well-established high street giants such as Boots and department store beauty halls, which stocked many of the same brands and products. 

Sephora might not have tasted success with its first foray into UK retail, but there is near-constant speculation that the beauty brand will take another crack at the UK.

Carrefour

The French grocery giant launched its first UK hypermarket in the surprising location of Caerphilly in south Wales in 1972 and opened a further 10 stores in locations including Merry Hill in Dudley, Metrocentre, Cribbs Causeway in Bristol and Eastleigh near Southampton.

The stores were acquired by the Dee Corporation in the mid-1980s and rebranded as Gateway.

However, the French grocer’s products still hold some appeal in the UK. Online supermarket Ocado began selling Carrefour’s Reflets de France range in 2011.

Tchibo

Tchibo

German retailer Tchibo, which specialised in coffee but also sold a wide range of general merchandise from clothing to electricals, made its UK debut in 2000.

It expansion was halted two years in as it attempted to get to grips with UK shopping habits; however, in 2003, UK boss David Haimes said Tchibo could open 500 stores over here.

Just five years later it closed 33 of its 73 stores and in 2009 quit the UK altogether.

The retailer’s eclectic product range was confusing to some UK shoppers, which saw it as too ‘bargain-basement’. Tchibo continually rotated its stores with new ‘themes’ – it’s slogan in Germany was “Every week a new world” – brought in each Wednesday.

Tchibo currently trades from 660 stores in Germany.

PetsMart

US pets giant PetsMart entered the UK when it snapped up Pet City in 1996 for £150m and rebranded its stores.

When it bought the business, it planned to grow from 50 to more than 300 stores in the UK.

PetsMart chief executive Mark Hansen said at the time: “Pet retailing is one of the growth businesses of the 1990s.”

However, the business struggled in a competitive environment and found securing planning permission for new stores difficult.

The 140-chain business was acquired by Pets at Home in 1999.

Bosideng

China is often seen as the land of opportunity for UK retailers; however, Shanghai-based Bosideng sought to prosper in the UK when it opened on the corner of Oxford Street and South Molton Street in the summer of 2012.

Bosideng

Bosideng

The £30m store was its first overseas and acted as the European headquarters for the menswear retailer, which has almost 8,000 retail outlets in China.

The store only stocked Bosideng’s premium menswear collection, designed for the European market by Nick Holland and Ash Gangotra, and most of the product was manufactured in the UK and Europe in a bid to speed up the production process.

When it opened in London, Bosideng founder and chairman Gao Dekang said this was an “important step” in internationalising the business as the store would test the water for expansion across Europe.

It even partnered with Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur, supplying formalwear to the team, in order to boost its British credentials.

However, by 2014, the retailer had made its UK buying and design teams redundant as it shifted the functions back to Shanghai and in early 2017 it pulled out of the UK altogether, closing its one store and website, citing the uncertainty arising from Brexit.

But the door was left slightly ajar. A Bosideng spokeswoman said to Drapers at the time of its exit: “We will return to the UK retail market when we see fit.”