Major supermarket chain with 900 branches to close locations this weekend
A MAJOR supermarket has closed two of its stores this weekend in a fresh blow to shoppers.
Iceland shut a store in Borehamwood and another in Exeter yesterday.
Doors closed for the final time at its Shenley Road store in Borehamwood at 4pm.
A sign spotted by shoppers said: “Sorry we’re closing.
“Your Borehamwood Iceland store is permanently closing from 4pm on Saturday 4th January.”
Customers who are keen to get their hands on Iceland food will need to head to Barnet.
An Iceland spokesperson told The Sun: “We can confirm our Borehamwood Iceland store is scheduled to close on 4th January.
“Our store colleagues were entered into a consultation process and have been offered opportunities at surrounding stores where possible.
“Iceland plans to open up a further 20 Iceland and Food Warehouse stores across the UK in the next financial year.”
The Iceland store in Alphington Road Retail Park, Exeter, also stopped trading permanently yesterday.
Exeter’s two other Iceland stores – in Sidwell Street in the city centre and The Food Warehouse by Iceland, in Marsh Barton Road – are unaffected.
But shoppers will still be able to get their hands on some Iceland products at the retail park.
This is because some Iceland goods will be sold at The Range store which is opposite.
It is understood that Aldi will expand into the space which was occupied by Iceland on Alphington Road, according to reports by DevonLive.
An Iceland insider told the publication: “The store has done really well but Aldi is expanding into the space.”
An Iceland spokesperson said: “We can confirm our Iceland Alphington Road Retail Park Exeter store is scheduled to close on 4th January.”
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.
The latest closures bring the total number of Iceland stores that have shut since last year to 25.
Retailers often close under-performing shops to relocate to areas with more demand or if they fail to renew the lease on a building.
But it is not all bad news for Iceland shoppers as the supermarket is on the hunt for up to 250 locations.
If it reaches these numbers then it would more than double the current footprint of Food Warehouse stores, which is currently just over 200.
The retailer is specifically looking for locations in Crawley, Brighton, Salisbury and Dundee.
It is also targeting locations in suburban parts of London, Manchester, Glasgow and Newcastle.
The supermarket launched Food Warehouse stores as an experiment in 2014.
The shops are three times the size of a traditional Iceland store and are mostly located in retail parks.
To find your closest Iceland store go to thefoodwarehouse.com/store-locator/.
What other shops are closing?
Iceland is not the only retailer which will close stores this month.
The Body Shop is set to close four shops in January despite being saved from administration just months ago.
The cosmetics and skincare chain will close two shops in Devon, one in Norwich and one in Sheffield on January 15.
The news comes after the firm went under in February and in the following months closed 82 shops in the UK and cut up to 800 jobs.
In September the company was bought by growth capital firm Aurea Group.
At the time it told The Sun that it had no immediate plans to shut any of The Body Shop’s remaining stores.
Meanwhile, stationer WHSmith will close one of its stores in Bournemouth, Dorset in January.
The shop on Old Christchurch Road will close its doors for good on January 18.
The book and stationary chain has closed ten stores since March 2023, including some shops in Somerset and Manchester.
Meanwhile, coffee giant Starbucks is also set to close two of its cafes this month.
The American coffee chain will shut its cafe on Dumfries high street on January 12.
The Starbucks branch in the Cineworld at Sixfields Leisure will shut for good on January 19.
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