A MAJOR retailer with 106 store branches will shut a store in days.
Smiggle will close its branch in Coney Street in York come June 15.
The stationary store is preparing to close a branch in York[/caption]
The brightly coloured stationary store first opened in the city centre nine years ago.
It was reported in YorkshireLive that the decision to close the children’s store came after the landlord decided not to renew the lease.
A 50% discount sale has been launched to help shift stock before the store closes for good.
The branch will close this Sunday, June 15 giving customers just a few days to say their goodbyes.
However it is not all bad news as a new Smiggle branch is set to open in York Designer Outlet this July.
The Sun has contacted Smiggle for comment.
It comes as the Australian-born business has announced plans to close a number of other stores across the UK.
A Cwmbran Shopping Centre will pull down its shutters for the final time in August.
Meanwhile two other branches closed in back in May.
A store in the Eastgate Shopping Centre, Inverness, shut its doors on May 21.
While a store in the Darwin Centre, Shrewsbury, closed on May 25.
In January 2024, the brand also closed a site in Dundee, Scotland.
And Smiggle is not the only brand closing stores across the UK.
STORE CLOSURES THIS JUNE
River Island will shutter a branch in Banbury on June 28, giving customers just a few days to say their goodbyes.
The fashion brand, which has been sported by Paris Fury and Cat Deeley, has quietly closed a number of stores in the past few months.
A branch in Willows Place, Corby closed in April and a separate site in Vicar Lane Shopping Centre in Chesterfield closed in the same month.
The Sun has contacted River Island for a comment.
News of the closure comes days after it was revealed that up to 230 of the retailer’s stores are at risk.
Hobbycraft also has plans to close up to nine stores by June 21.
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.”
