Lillywhites
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Lillywhites is a sports retailer based at Piccadilly Circus, London, United Kingdom. It has been based at its current location since 1925. In the 19th century, several members of the Lillywhite family were leading cricketers; another, Fred Lillywhite, organised the first overseas tour by an England team to North America in 1859. Currently, Lillywhites is owned by the same firm that operates the Sports World chain.
Until 2002, Lillywhites also had locations in other major cities in the United Kingdom including Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne and Nottingham with the Leeds store being a very large five storey store that opened in 1996 on The Headrow in the former Schofields department store. However these closed due to competition from other sport retailers who had charged less for their products. Many of these former stores have since been rebranded as Sports World. An exception to this is the branch at the Lakeside Shopping Centre in West Thurrock, Essex which continues to trade as Lillywhites.
Lillywhites has changed a lot since new ownership from the company who also run the Sports World chain. Before the change (during the 90s), Lillywhites policy was to compete on quality products (which were charged at premium prices) but nowadays, discount goods seem to be their agenda and the branches at Piccadilly Circus and Lakeside are essentially Sports World trading under a different name. Lillywhites has become a discount store for cheap sporting goods. Emphasis seems to have shifted under the new ownership from quality and good service, to the 'pile it high sell it cheap' mentality.
