SHUTTERS DOWN
‘Absolutely devastated’ say shoppers over store closure as health and beauty retail chain shakes up high street offering
The retailer has confirmed plans to close up to 300 branches
A MAJOR health and beauty retailer is due to close another branch within days after more than 30 years.
Boots is closing a branch in Queensway, London for good on May 28.
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Signs and leaflets were being handed out to customers which read: “We’re closing. This store will close on May 28 2024.”
The retailer is planning on opening a new store nearby just a day later, so shoppers won't be without.
Store signs read: “Your new Boots store will open on May 29 2024 at 166 - 172 Queensway.”
The new store will have a pharmaceutical service with a new private double consultation room and will have longer opening hours.
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The store will also have a beauty hall with new brands such as IT Cosmetics, Urban Decay, The Ordinary and Liz Earle.
A Boots spokesperson said: "A brand-new Boots store is set to open in Queensway, London on Wednesday morning.
"The new look store includes a selection of exciting new brands and an updated health and beauty shopping experience.
"The existing store in Queensway will close on Tuesday evening. We look forward to welcoming customers to our new store soon.”
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Shoppers and locals in the store said they felt nostalgic about the old branch.
One shopper told our reporters: “Absolutely devastated, the pharmacy here has much more accessible hours than any other in the area.”
“I think I’ve been coming here for about 35 years,” said another shopper.
Another branch Kent closed on March 20 while Castlecroft in Wolverhampton will shut on March 21.
North Kenton, Newcastle has recently closed, along with Welwyn Garden City and the East Parade store, Heworth, York.
Boots announced last year that it would close more than 300 branches as part of plans to evolve its brand.
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The closures are part of wider plans that will see the retailer's total number of shops reduced from 2,200 to 1,900.
Boots did not say at the time which locations would be affected, but that those closing would be shops which are close to another site.
Since then, The Sun has identified dozens of locations that have closed.
Boots said in all cases there is an alternative store less than three miles away.
When it announced the plans last summer, the company said in its quarterly results: "Over the next year Boots will continue to consolidate a number of stores in close proximity to each other.
"Evolving the store estate in this way allows Boots to concentrate its team members where they are needed and focus investment more acutely in individual stores with the ambition of consistently delivering an excellent and reliable service in a fresh and up to date environment."
Boots also closed more than 200 stores over 18 months in 2019.
This saw roughly 8% of Boots high street branches close.
What's happening on the high street?
Retailers have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis.
High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going.
The high street has seen a whole raft of closures over the past year, and more are coming.
The number of jobs lost in British retail dropped last year, but 120,000 people still lost their employment, figures have suggested.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline.
The Sun's business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open. In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.
Figures from the Centre for Retail Research revealed that 10,494 shops closed for the last time during 2023, and 119,405 jobs were lost in the sector.
It was fewer shops than had been lost for several years, and a reduction from 151,641 jobs lost in 2022.
The centre's director, Professor Joshua Bamfield, said the improvement is "less bad" than good.
Although there were some big-name losses from the high street, including Wilko, many large companies had already gone bust before 2022, the centre said, such as Topshop owner Arcadia, Jessops and Debenhams.
"The cost-of-living crisis, inflation and increases in interest rates have led many consumers to tighten their belts, reducing retail spend," Prof Bamfield said.
"Retailers themselves have suffered increasing energy and occupancy costs, staff shortages and falling demand that have made rebuilding profits after extensive store closures during the pandemic exceptionally difficult."
Alongside Wilko, which employed around 12,000 people when it collapsed, 2023's biggest failures included Paperchase, Cath Kidston, Planet Organic and Tile Giant.
Retailers opening stores
IT'S not all bad news on the high street as several retailers are bucking the trend and opening shops.
- German discounter Aldi has announced it will open 35 new UK stores this year. The openings form part of Aldi's long-term target of operating 1,500 stores in the UK.
- Asda has been opening hundreds of convenience stores as it looks to rival major players Tesco and Sainsbury's.
- Purepay Retail Limited , the parent company of Bonmarché, Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) and Peacocks, Purepay Retail Limited, has said it wants to open 100 new high street stores over the next 18 months.
- Home Bargains has said it wants to "eventually have between 800 and 1,000 retail outlets open".
- Primark is also opening new branches and investing and renovating more than a dozen of its existing shops.
- Screwfix is set to open 40 new stores nationwide as its owner, Kingfisher, seeks to expand the DIY brand's national presence.
- Tesco has revealed plans to open 70 more stores across the UK over the next year as part of major expansion plans.
- WHSmith has turned its focus to the travel side of its business, with plans to open new sites in airports, railway stations and hospitals.
The Centre for Retail Research said most stores were closed because companies were trying to reorganise and cut costs rather than the business failing.
However, experts have warned there will likely be more failures this year as consumers keep their belts tight and borrowing costs soar for businesses.
The Body Shop and Ted Baker are the biggest names to have already collapsed into administration this year.
Other big names like Boots have slimmed down the number of stores they have overall.
Often retailers will target locations that are under-performing, have low footfall, or where leases are up for renewal, letting them end instead.
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M&S for example has closed a number of larger stores and opened food halls nearby instead.
Another high street giant Argos, which is owned by Sainsbury's, plans to close 100 stores across the UK in 2023/24 and focus on expanding its presence in supermarkets instead.
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