Major retailer with over 800 branches confirms popular site will shut in ANOTHER blow to highstreet
A MAJOR retailer with over 800 branches has confirmed it will close a popular site in another blow to a local high street.
Bournemouth locals are reeling following news that Superdrug will close its site on Commercial Road on January 31.
The popular retailer – which sells everything from makeup to medicine – confirmed to The Sun that it is exiting the location because of the landlord’s desire to redevelop the site.
As part of the development plans, the current building housing the shop will be converted into eight smaller units, reports in the Bournemouth Daily Echo said.
Following its closure, locals will have three other Superdrugs to shop from but no longer have a branch in the town centre.
One of the nearest locations is a 3.1-mile journey to its branch on Christchurch Road.
The closure has been described as “ridiculous” by locals, who are also preparing for the closure of WHSmith in the town centre come January 18.
One upset local said Bournemouth is becoming a “ghost town,” after hearing the news of another closure.
A second devasted shopper said Superdrug doesn’t deserve to go.
“It’s such a good shop,” they said adding that WH Smith was “one of the best” stores to buy art supplies.
“Bournemouth has died,” a third solemnly added.
A fourth was added that it was “shocking” and they wondered “what had gone wrong.”
On top of this WHSmith already has plans to close another branch in Bournemouth in the New Year.
It said that it would be closing its Winton branch in Bournemouth, Dorset on February 15.
This comes after the retailer, whose stores are a regular fixture in airports around the world, closed its Boscombe branch in the same town in June.
WHSmith is focusing on the travel side of its business where sales are growing.
In an update this year to investors, the retailer said it’s on track to open 15 stores this year, with a further 15 to follow “each year over the medium term”.
As for Superdrug, it’s not the first time the brand has shuttered a store on the high street.
The retailer closed a branch in Oxford in June.
But is not all bad news, Superdrug recently cut the ribbon on the new-look branch in Westfield Shopping Centre, Stratford.
The London branch has been refitted and is now double the size – measuring 9,890 square feet.
The store expansion has also seen a further 25 members of permanent staff taken on.
OTHER SHOP CLOSURES
Plenty of other retailers are closing stores across the high street as households lean more towards online shopping and amid high business rates.
Soaring inflation in recent years has also dented shoppers’ pockets.
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.
Retailers are shutting stores in 2025 too.
The Body Shop is pulling down the shutters on five branches on January 15 in Exeter, Plymouth, Horsham, Norwich and Sheffield.
Three other branches have already closed in Cambridge and Hove.
All in all, the Centre for Retail Research estimates more stores will close this year than last.
It predicts around 17,350 sites to close for good, made up of around 14,660 independent shops.
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.”
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