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‘An absolute shambles’ cry shoppers as major card retailer with over 1,000 branches to close ‘amazing’ site
Watch The Sun's business editor Ashley Armstrong explain why chain's sometimes close stores
A MAJOR card retailer with more than 1,000 branches is closing one of its stores and the exact date it will shut has been revealed.
Card Factory has branches across the country including in major cities like London, Nottingham and Sheffield.
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It sells everything from cards, gifts and party essentials like balloons.
But shoppers in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, will soon need to find an alternative shop as the chain is set to close its store on July 20.
A sign has appeared in the shop window, which reads: "We're closing on July 20.
"The party continues at your nearest store: Card Factory Unit 75, Antonine Shopping Centre, 17 Forth Walk Cumbernauld, G67 1BT."
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Shoppers have shared their sadness over the decision to close the site on social media.
One Facebook user said: "It would be better to just close the centre down completely."
Another wrote: "Another one gone."
A third cried: "Another one bites the dust."
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And a forth added: "Place is an absolute shambles."
Writing in the Google reviews, one shopper described it as "amazing", while another praised the "friendly" staff.
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A Card Factory spokesperson said: "We continually review our estate of over 1,050 stores across the UK and Ireland.
"With our other Cumbernauld store just around the corner in the Antonine Shopping Centre on Forth Walk, (0.2 miles away), we have taken the decision to close our store on Teviot Street from July 20.
"We look forward to continuing to serve all our Cumbernauld customers and helping them celebrate their special life moments.”
It comes after Card Factory revealed it had seen a strong performance in stores in its annual trading results.
The retailer said it also plans to opens or refurbish 43 new stores during the year.
Card Factory also enjoyed strong sales over Christmas following a demand for gifts.
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.
HIGH STREET WOES
Several major shops and chains are closing dozens of branches in 2024.
Some stores will be replaced or relocated while others will disappear from the high street forever.
Fellow card retailer Clintons is also set to close a number of branches, including those in Bournemouth and Kettering.
In August 2023, restructuring experts FRP Advisory and law firm Jones Day presented plans to save the business in an insolvency court.
They came up with a deal to save thousands of jobs and over one hundred UK stores.
But it also involved waving goodbye to a selection of shops that were not earning enough money to keep.
Argos, Next, Jack Wills and Poundland have all all shut selected branches this year.
It comes as 6,000 retail outlets have brought down the shutters since 2018, according to the British Retail Consortium.
The trade association's chief executive Helen Dickinson OBE blamed the closures on "crippling" business rates and the impact of coronavirus lockdowns.
Energy costs have risen and more shoppers than ever are choosing to order online rather than head into stores.
This has left some retailers grappling with budgets and having no choice but to close stores to cut costs.
Several big retailers have fallen into administration in the past year, including Wilko, Paperchase, and most recently, The Body Shop and Ted Baker.
For the most part, supermarkets have braved the storm as they provide essential items like food and drink but other retailers have been less fortunate.
Boots announced it would be closing 300 stores over the next year as part of plans to evolve its brand.
Wilko collapsed into administration last year after being hit hard by inflationary pressures, competition from rivals and supply chain challenges.
However, it's not all bad news for the high street, as several other retailers and hospitality venues have plans to expand.
Beer giant Heineken announced plans to invest £39million to help reopen 62 previously shuttered British pubs.
Aldi has announced that it will open 35 new UK stores.
The openings form part of Aldi's long-term target of 1,500 stores in the UK.
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The supermarket is set to invest £550million in expanding its UK footprint this year alone.
Aldi said each new store opening will create around 40 new jobs on average.
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