A HIGH street jewellery chain with 89 shops will close two of its ‘no longer viable’ stores this weekend.
Beaverbrooks will shut its shop in Birmingham Fort for good tomorrow.
Beaverbrooks is closing two shops for the last time tomorrow[/caption]
Its High Wycombe shop will also shut permanently tomorrow after 17 years in the town.
Signs and posters at the store confirm all items are now up to 30% off.
The chain has said it will shut seven sites in March and April after a review.
Three other shops are closing in England, including those in Huddersfield, Croydon and Sutton Coldfield.
Meanwhile two Scottish branches in East Kilbride and Dundee have already closed their doors forever.
This is the full list of stores shutting and their closure dates:
- East Kilbride, Scotland – Closed March 16
- Dundee, Scotland – Closed March 16
- Birmingham Fort – March 23
- High Wycombe – March 23
- Huddersfield – April 5
- Croydon – April 6
- Sutton Coldfield – April 6
The chain has already launched a closing down sale at its Croydon shop with diamonds, jewellery and watches now up to 40% off.
The news comes after The Sun exclusively revealed Beaverbrooks plans to shutter seven branches that it deemed “no longer commercially viable”.
Anna Blackburn, managing director of the jewellery chain, said the sites would close after a business performance review.
She said: “At Beaverbrooks we pride ourselves on our people-first culture and open, honest relationships with our colleagues.
“Our directors delivered the news in person to each team member.”
She added that the chain will aim to retain as many colleagues as possible within other Beaverbrooks stores or in the wider business.
She said the chain is “working closely with each individual affected to provide them with options for their specific needs” and the chain would support them with their next steps.
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.
Beaverbrooks is set to make big changes to its retail footprint this year.
It plans to open a new store in Harrogate this spring.
Meanwhile, some of its branches are being renovated.
In its most recent accounts filed with Companies House the chain said profitability in the 53 weeks to March 2, 2024 had fallen “considerably”.
It added: “Despite increasing turnover and market share, profitability for the period was reduced considerably which reflects significant and broad increases in costs.”
Turnover is the amount of money a business makes over a certain period of time.
Beaverbrooks said the decrease in turnover had been caused by an increase in workers’ pay, property refurbishment and repairs.
The store closures come after Beaverbrooks shuttered a store in Romford, London, last March.
Not all store closures are due to financial problems in a business.
Retailers often close branches and open them in other areas based on customer demand and trends.
Retail sector struggles
The retail sector has been hit hard in the past couple of years as customers continue to shop online.
Shoppers are still also feeling the pinch as sky-high inflation has dented their wallets.
These factors have led to a number of major retailers closing stores to shore up their finances.
The Centre for Retail Research’s latest analysis suggests 13,479 stores, the equivalent of 37 each day, shut for good in 2024.
Of those, 11,341 were independent shops while 2,138 were shut by larger retailers.
The data also showed over half the stores that closed last year were shut due to the store or retailer going through insolvency proceedings.
This is when formal measures are taken to deal with tackling a business’s debt.
Meanwhile, changes to Employer National Insurance contributions and an increase in the National Living Wage are also piling further pressure onto retailers.
From next month the amount employers will need to hand over in National Insurance will rise from 13.8% to 15%.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”
At the same time the National Living Wage will rise by 77p an hour to £12.21.
The changes will pile further pressure on retailers, who have already warned that they will need to put up prices or scale back on expansion plans to cope.
New Look is ramping up a store closure programme ahead of the National Insurance hike.
Approximately a quarter of its 364 stores are at risk when their lease expires.
This is equivalent to around 91 stores, which could have a significant impact on the chain’s 8,000-strong workforce.
The company has restructured its store estate twice in the past six years.
It has reduced its portfolio from around 600 UK stores in 2018.
It has also closed all of its 26 stores across Ireland bringing to an end its two decade tenure in the country.
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