Huge shoe chain with 278 shops shut over 30 stores in store shake-up
A BIG shoe chain has shut more than 30 stores over the past year, it has been revealed.
Shoe Zone has shuttered 31 of its stores in that time, after saying it would close "unviable" sites due to the increase in National Insurance contributions for employers.
It has also blamed soaring business rates, wage hikes, lower customer spends and poor weather for the hit to its stores.
Some 21 of its locations closed in the first half of the financial year alone.
Shoe Zone currently has 278 shops across the UK.
Most recently it shut its Bexhill town centre store, leaving locals heartbroken.
More on store closures
Other stores that have shut include Boscombe, Bournemouth, Burnham-on-Sea and Burgess Hill, West Sussex.
Stores in Watford, Stoke-on-Trent and Inverness also shut last year.
Despite the closures, it has also opened two new stores and expanded two existing ones.
The company, which sells a range of branded and own-label shoes, has reported a loss and lower sales.
Most read in Money
It said it made a pre-tax loss of £2.3 million in the six months to March 29, compared with a profit of £2.6 million a year ago.
It's expecting to report a pre-tax profit of £5million for the year, having previously been slashed from a forecast of £10 million.
In 2023, the company saw a 40% drop in pre-tax profits, with chairman Charles Smith pointing to an “unseasonably wet summer” as a major factor in lost sales.
Shares in the retailer plunged by a fifth today after the update to investors.
Shoe Zone said it is planning to spend about £6million this year on renovating shops that it wants to convert to a newer format.
It is aiming to run 260 shops in total, meaning a further 18 could shut.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the outlook "remains gloomy" for Shoe Zone and there is low consumer confidence.
Retail sector struggles
As more people turn to online shopping and costs increase for businesses, more high street chains have been struggling.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) said more than 13,000 high street stores closed permanently in 2024.
That's the equivalent of 37 shops shutting for good each day.
Independent stores have been hit the hardest but a number of major brands have also crashed into administration.
Ted Baker, Carpetright, The Body Shop and Homebase all fell into administration last year, closing dozens of stores between them.
Read More on The Sun
Earlier this year, online fashion brand In The Style was saved after briefly collapsing into administration.
Meanwhile WHSmith revealed it is axing all of its high street locations after selling them off to Hobbycraft owner Modella Capital as part of a £76million deal.
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.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs from April 2025, will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
At the same time, the minimum wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from April, and the minimum wage for people aged 18-20 will rise to £10 an hour, an increase of £1.40.
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.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Carpetright, Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Paperchase, Ted Baker, The Body Shop, Topshop and Wilko 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 Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
