HEARTBROKEN shoppers cried “we’ll have nothing left” after a major fashion chain pulled the shutters down permanently.
A retailer with over 100 branches has closed down a store earlier than expected – and fans aren’t happy about it.
Loyal customers of Fashion store USC in Stoke-on-Trent, run by the Frasers Group, thought their beloved site would be waving goodbye on June 14.
But yesterday found “One day to go” signs posted on the windows.
The branch, in The Potteries Centre, in Hanley, sadly shut up shop amid a string of closures in the area.
Disappointed shoppers shared their frustrations on social media.
One said: “Everywhere you go places are boarded up it is becoming a ghost town.”
A second said: “Might as well close the Potteries Centre the way things are going.”
Another wrote: “I went up Friday and was shocked on how many shops that were closed, there won’t be anything left soon.”
“It already is used be lovely to go not now it’s shocking,” agreed a fourth.
“They report it will soon be like a ghost town. I think they are a bit late; it’s already a ghost town,” posted someone else.
Meanwhile, a Potteries Centre spokesman said: “We are disappointed to hear that USC at The Potteries Centre is closing down.
“This is a commercial decision taken by the brand. We wish their staff well.
“We are always working hard to refresh our store line-up with new and exciting retailers to give our visitors the best possible shopping experience.”
What does Frasers Group own?
MIKE Ashley’s Frasers Group owns dozens of high street and online brands, here is the full list.
- House of Fraser
- Sports Direct
- Flannels
- Evans Cycles
- Everlast Gyms
- Everlast
- Game
- Frasers
- I saw it first
- Gieves and Hawkes
- Jack Wills
- Slazenger
- Studio
- Sofa.com
- USA Pro
- USC
It comes as a number of retailers owned by Frasers Group have shuttered stores permanently.
House of Fraser has shuttered several of its shops in recent years, including in Birmingham, Cardiff and Guildford.
A Sports Direct branch in Stroud, Gloucestershire, pulled down its shutters for good at the end of March too.
The retailer also closed its store in the Central Six Retail Park, Coventry, at the end of January.
The Flannels site in Market Place Shopping Centre, Bolton, also closed at the start of 2024, while another shuttered in Bradford in January.
Designer clothing chain Choice has pulled the shutters down on one of its stores in Bromley too.
Frasers Group also put luxury brand Matchesfashion into administration in March.
It’s not all bad news though as the firm has opened several sites in recent months.
Frasers Group has already started opening “new concept” stores.
The concept stores hold various Frasers brands like Sports Direct, Flannels, and beauty halls as well as products from USC, Jack Wills and GAME.
It follows an uncertain time for UK high streets with several popular chains including M&Co, Paperchase and Wilko closing all stores in 2023.
Several other retailers have been struggling to recover after the pandemic and cost-of-living pressures.
Energy costs have risen, while more shoppers are faced with less disposable income and tighter budgets.
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 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.