[Radio Wrangler]

It just seems to be someone getting what last money they can out of the embers and hoping its somewhat more than those embers cost them.

If I needed a name for a business, how keen would I be to buy the name of a failed one?
Is the Maplin name more associated with selling components and toys, or with having gone down the tubes? There are the empty carcasses of their shops in many towns to act as remainders. The retail sector even before the virus was in full-astern, so the premises have largely been left empty.

Another thing was that many retailers latched onto the scheme of selling gift vouchers as a way of bringing income forwards and improving their financial position. When companies went into the hands of the receivers, the vouchers became worthless. Cameras are expensive, and the change to digital models along with a dramatic increase in prices was well under way when Jessops went under. Some people had been saving up gift vouchers from birthdays, Christmas etc. totalling many hundreds of pounds as they saved for a thousand pound plus camera. Jessops went under. Their name was sold off to a dragon, and he at least started reopening some shops, but the holders of the gift vouchers were left to lick their wounds. Maplin had gift vouchers out, too, but probably not to the values that Jessops had.

To someone with an expensive piece of paper in their hand, the shop still has the same name on it.

The purchaser of the name bought it hoping that lingering recognition would bring business in, that people thinking of a radio controlled toy for the kids or an amateur level DSLR will automatically think of the name even if the nearest shop has gone and there's only a website. On the other hand these people are quick to tell holders of the gift vouchers "Oh, no, those were from the old business and they are gone, this is an all-new business..."

They can't have it both ways, names come with baggage. People will remember the bad bits as well as the good, and in the process of failure, a business will be notching up bad bits an awful lot more than good bits.

I didn't get bitten with gift vouchers, but I saw a lot of people do.

Hollywood has it wrong about zombies. Surely someone who was recently dead and has been reanimated somehow will be feeling rather poorly and not at all up to ravaging the city?