When analysts predicted that Woolworths would be broken up and sold in bits, few, if any, meant it literally.

Yet even the fixtures and fittings at Woolworths are up for sale, four days before the first stores begin to close, as administrators attempt to wring every last penny out of the stricken high street chain.

Shoppers yesterday could buy in-trays, wire baskets, chairs and noticeboards as well as stationery, furniture and office equipment.

Store safes were on sale for £300. The CCTV was up for grabs. Price lists, complete with photographs, were posted in stores. Such is the desperation to raise cash that Deloitte, the administrator to Woolworths, has devised an incentive scheme to encourage staff to sell office items. For every £100 of sales earned above the target, £10 will go to managers and £10 to workers.

Some opportunists hoped to cash in on Woolworths nostalgia by putting items on the auction website eBay, including an empty pick’n’mix bag. One Woolworths worker put a staff T-shirt on the website yesterday, saying that it will soon be an “heirloom”.

The scenes in Woolworths stores yesterday began to resemble the last days of the Soviet Union, as shoppers stripped shelves bare. Managers issued memos to staff outlining the incentive scheme and urging them to keep stores open until 8pm. The shop workers’ union Usdaw said that this last appeal was heavy handed.

Woolworths’ 807 stores will shut in four tranches, beginning on December 27, with the final stores closing on January 5. The supermarket chain Iceland is understood to have bought 51 of the stores, which offers the hope of re-employment to about 2,000 staff. Malcolm Walker, Iceland’s chief executive, made a £50 million offer for Woolworths in the summer.

The demise of Woolworths will give value-focused northern-based chains such as Wilkinsons, with 312 outlets, and TJ Hughes, and stores such as Iceland, Lidl and Poundland, which have a bigger presence in the North, an opportunity to expand in the South. Wilkinsons is understood to be looking at dozens of Woolworths stores. Poundland has also expressed an interest.

James Wedge, a retail analyst with GMAP Consulting, estimated that Wilkinsons stood to gain £216 million of Woolworths’ sales, before it has bought any of the vacant premises. “There are big gaps for these stores to move into in the South,” he said.

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