A MAJOR fashion chain with 87 stores nationwide will shutter another branch later today, leaving shoppers gutted.
Superdry, nestled inside the Union Square Shopping Centre in Aberdeen, is welcoming in punters for the final time as it looks set to pull the plug at 7pm tonight.
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The news devastated with locals, with many flocking to social media to vent their frustrations.
“The only shop I go there for,” one said.
A second weighed in: “This is just shocking – so what if Aberdeen is not in the central belt area – Aberdeen deserves a decent variety of shops and people should not have to shop online to get the clothes the want.”
A third agreed: “It’s very sad, Aberdeen city centre is in decline – closed shops everywhere.”
It comes after signs outside the store advertised a 30% off sale earlier this month, The Press and Journal reported.
Superdry closed a string of branches in 2024 following tough trading conditions.
The retailer, introduced to the masses by David Beckham, closed 12 stores over the first half of the year, taking its estate to 96 branches.
The fashion brand said last January it was looking at various “cost-saving options” after reports it was considering major restructuring.
This followed the firm saying its revenue had fallen by nearly a quarter to £219.8million in the six months to the end of October 2023.
The chain said its adjusted loss had nearly doubled to £25.3million.
The Superdry branch in the Union Square Shopping Centre is not the only branch to close, or confirm it will close, in recent weeks.
Popular fashion chain Fat Face shuttered its store inside the shopping centre permanently on January 25, marking the end of Aberdeen’s only Fat Face site.
Meanwhile, American retailer Hollister is set to close its only store in Aberdeen at the end of the month.
The retail sector has been hit hard in recent years due to a number of reasons, partly high inflation and people turning to online shopping.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) said more than 13,000 high street stores closed permanently in 2024.
The centre’s latest analysis found that 13,479 stores, the equivalent of 37 each day, shut their doors for good over the calendar year – representing a 28% increase on 2023.
Of the 13,479 branches, 11,341 were independent while 2,138 stores were shut by larger chains..
Some major chains have taken big hits, including Carpetright and Ted Baker which both fell into administration in 2024.
This month, Quiz Clothing reportedly said it was set to call in administrators putting 60 stores at risk of closure.
More pain is expected to come in 2025 too, with the CRR estimating around 17,350 stores will close across the year.
The CRR said it predicted a hike in the number of store closures due to the upcoming hike in employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and national minimum wage.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”
