A HUGE department store has confirmed that it is shutting one of its stores for good today.
Beales Department Store in Southport has announced it will be closing its branch on the Merseyside high street for the final time.
It is just three years after the site reopened to a long line of customers.
A go-to for residents looking to spend their savings on home, electric and fashion essentials anyone previously hoping to head to Lord Street may want to move fast to make the most of the closing down clearance sale.
Beales Southport took to Facebook to announce its closure, encouraging people to head in-store with “everything” priced to clear with “1000s of items now £10 or under”.
Hundreds of devastated shoppers left comments on the department store’s social media post, expressing their disappointment over the loss of another iconic branch.
“So sad what’s left for us in Southport,” cried one shopper.
Another commented: “Very sad.”
While a third wrote: “Another big empty store now.”
And this former worker said: “Used to work there back in the day when it was Broadbent and Boothroyds.
“I went in a few days ago and it was just so sad to see people picking through the bones of what was left of a once great very up-market department store.”
Founded in 1881, Beales once operated 23 department stores in market towns across the UK selling a range of furniture, fashion, toys and cosmetics. It employs circa 1,052 members of staff.
The department store chain fell into administration back in 2020.
It had been hunting for a buyer since December as well as seeking to negotiate down its rents – following poor Christmas trading.
The COVID-19 pandemic hastened the closure of the remaining Beales stores, with the last stores closing on March 18 2020 and the website going offline shortly afterwards.
After the Southport store shuts there will be just one left in the UK – in Poole.
Several major shops and chains are closing dozens of branches in 2024.
Some stores will be replaced or relocated while others will disappear from the high street forever.
Argos, Next, Jack Wills and Poundland have all all shut selected branches this year.
It comes as 6,000 retail outlets have brought down the shutters since 2018, according to the British Retail Consortium.
The trade association’s chief executive Helen Dickinson OBE blamed the closures on “crippling” business rates and the impact of coronavirus lockdowns.
Energy costs have risen and more shoppers than ever are choosing to order online rather than head into stores.
This has left some retailers grappling with budgets and having no choice but to close stores to cut costs.
Several big retailers have fallen into administration in the past year, including Wilko, Paperchase, and most recently, The Body Shop and Ted Baker.
For the most part, supermarkets have braved the storm as they provide essential items like food and drink but other retailers have been less fortunate.
Boots announced it would be closing 300 stores over the next year as part of plans to evolve its brand.
Wilko collapsed into administration last year after being hit hard by inflationary pressures, competition from rivals and supply chain challenges.
However, it’s not all bad news for the high street, as several other retailers and hospitality venues have plans to expand.
Beer giant Heineken announced plans to invest £39million to help reopen 62 previously shuttered British pubs.
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.
