SHOPPERS are sobbing as a major retailer with around 300 British stores is closing an “essential” outlet for good today.
DIY favourite B&Q has branches across many UK towns and cities and is a one-stop shop for homemakers needing tools, appliances and garden furniture.
But from today (June 8) customers in Sutton, South London, will have to find an alternative chain.
Writing in the Google reviews after the news was announced last month, locals described the store as “excellent”, “helpful” and with staff who go “above and beyond”.
Shoppers also flocked to social media to share their sadness over the decision to close the site.
One Facebook user said: “Very disappointing to see.”
Another cried: “That’s a big loss for residents in Sutton.”
A third added: “This is terrible news if you don’t have a car there is nowhere else to go. It is such a fantastic shop to lose.”
And a fourth wrote: “It will be sad to see it go. I shop in there a lot and it’s a great store.”
A B&Q spokesperson said: “Due to unsuccessful negotiations to renew the lease at our Sutton Court Road store, we will be closing our doors on June 8, 2024.
“In preparation for this closure and to ensure we can continue to serve local residents, last year we opened a B&Q Local store on Sutton High Street where customers can continue to shop for all their home improvement needs.”
There are also nearby stores in Holloway Road, Wandsworth and Tooting, so shoppers will still be able to bag their DIY essentials.
Just because a chain is closing a shop, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s struggling.
Most stores close because companies try to reorganise and cut costs rather than the business failing.
In some instances, a company may have to close a store because they can’t agree to terms with the landlord.
Despite the closure, B&Q said that new store openings “remain at the heart of our retail growth strategy”.
Last March, B&Q shut eight “mini-shops” located inside Asda supermarkets.
The retailer said it intended to launch smaller stores along the high street instead.
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 on a retail park a 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.