Outdoor clothing shop with over 300 branches launches closing down sale as store set to shut
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AN outdoor clothing shop with over 300 branches has launched a closing down sale as it prepares to shut one of its stores.
Customers will be able to bag a bargain with as much as 60% off – but they’ve got just weeks to do so.
Trespass at Highcross Shopping centre in Leicester will shut its doors for good on March 31.
And as it takes its final bow, it’ll hold a whopping 60 per cent off sale.
The reason for its closure remains unknown, however, this hasn’t stopped keyboard warriors from debate over the past week.
Some locals argued whether this is a Leicester issue while others said the branch has been on the way out for years.
One person said: “They’ve been having closing down sales for at least 10 years.”
To which another person replied: “Far longer than 10 years! I would wager all of their shops have been having closing down sales since they were founded in 1981.”
Someone else added: “Is it still closing down? I left Leicester in 2015 and I’m sure it had signs up then.”
Meanwhile a fourth person commented: “Leicester has been closing down for 10 years.”
Sadly, it comes just weeks after Trespass announced its branch at Middlesbrough‘s Hillstreet Shopping Centre would shut.
Yellow and black signs reading “‘everything must go” were posted on the store’s windows, Teeside Live reported.
The outdoor clothing specialist had opened in the shopping centre less than two years ago.
Trespass previously announced it would axe six sites from its estate in July 2023, with the closure of branches including Norwich and Sutton Coldfield following.
Stores close sites for a variety of reasons including that a particular site is not performing or that a lease is coming to an end.
However, closures are not always an indication that a brand is struggling.
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.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April 2025, will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
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.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Carpetright, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Paperchase, Ted Baker, The Body Shop, Topshop and Wilko 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.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.