Debenhams will close the doors of its remaining U.K. stores for the final time this weekend because of lockdown, bringing more than 240 years of retail history to an end. Sky News has the story.
The department store chain, a staple of high streets since 1778, will close its remaining 28 stores for good on Saturday after the company collapsed amid the fallout of the Covid pandemic.
It closed 21 of its sites across the U.K. for the final time on Thursday.
The retailer was already struggling before the coronavirus outbreak, as shoppers moved away from traditional department store models and moved online.
But it could not cope with the enforced closure of sites during lockdown and quickly went into administration within weeks of the virus fully hitting the U.K..
The company, which began life as a high end draper in London’s West End, started its liquidation process at the start of this year after failing to secure a rescue sale.
Debenhams employed more than 20,000 people before lockdown struck. The closure of its stores is just the tip of the iceberg for the high street. Over 11,000 retail outlets permanently closed in 2020, and the Local Data Company expects this will be followed by 18,000 more closures in 2021.
The Sky News report is worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Arthur Beale, a 500 year-old yacht chandler in London, has closed its doors for the last time. The Wall St Journal has the story.
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Our main task going forward must be to ensure that lockdowns are never again used.
Good interview with the always interesting Nick Hudson on this topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYtLT3pUEo4
Has anybody also noted that in most supermarkets (that I’ve experienced) there are now more self service checks out than manned checkout (am I allowed to say manned?). They seem to be installing new ones in the supermarkets I go to.
I guess there are going to be lots of retail stored assistants getting made redundant. (i understand that in the USA that minimum wage workers receive more on furlough than working and companies are having problems recruiting low skill workers).
Yes, and in our local Wilco’s there is only one “personed” till (cash), the rest are self service (card/bank app)
All the manned deli meat and fish counters now self service.
Another reason to order online.
In our town about 12 years ago they built a new shopping centre, with Debenhams getting the primary location with a Bull Ring style building.
A local department store, which had a clothing and a household goods outlet in our town, (both since then closed, although the plan was to bring back the kitchen shop after redeveloping the existing building) was the other contender. Now we have nothing.
Our local paper asked what to do with the building, turning it into a community facility was quite popular!
A jabberwockery. Or a church. Actually it’s the same thing. A centre for Covid-worship.
And who profited from this? Why, the great pro-lockdown online retailers like Amazon.
Undeniably.
Amazon, unlike cretins such as Kim Jong-Johnson and Nicola Ceausescu, deliver goods
Does anybody remember that Debenhams was a retail basket case long before lockdowns?