AN iconic American clothing chain is set to close a major city centre store in weeks.
Hollister, a subsidiary of Abercrombie & Fitch, is closing its only store in Aberdeen, Scotland next month.
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The shop, located in Union Square, was the first site for the brand in Scotland when it first opened in 2010.
However, the store, which occupies the ground floor unit will soon disappear.
The closure is set to take place at the end of February, but an exact date is yet to be confirmed.
A spokesperson for Hollister’s parent company Abercrombie & Fitch, said: “We can confirm we will be closing our Union Square Hollister store at the end of February.
“We believe stores matter and we are exploring new store opportunities in the UK, including in Aberdeen, to provide a great shopping experience for our customers.”
Hollister’s nearest outlet is located at the popular Braehead Shopping Centre, in Glasgow.
Known for it’s summer-style clothing, and unique interior, the Glasgow store sits on the top floor of the shopping centre.
With the closure of the unit in Aberdeen, there are only three remaining stores across the country.
The branch in Braehead, alongside stores in Buchanan Galleries, Glasgow, and George Street, Edinburgh.
It comes just days after another major fashion brand exited the same shopping centre.
Fat Face permanently closed its shop on January 25, after being open for more than a decade.
History of Hollister in the UK
- October 2008: Hollister Co. opened its first store outside North America in Brent Cross Shopping Centre, London. This marked the beginning of the brand’s expansion into the UK market.
- December 2008: Two more stores quickly followed, opening in Westfield London and Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.
- May 2009: The first Hollister store outside London opened in WestQuay Shopping Centre, Southampton.
- Early 2010: A fifth UK store opened in Milton Keynes.
- 2012: A Gilly Hicks (Hollister’s intimates brand) flagship store opened in London.
- 2020: A relocated and expanded Hollister store, incorporating Gilly Hicks, opened in St David’s, Cardiff, showcasing a new prototype store format with omnichannel features.
- 2025: As of January, Hollister operates out of 50 stores in the UK. Abercrombie & Fitch (Hollister’s parent company) planned to open seven additional Hollister stores in the UK in 2025.
RETAIL SECTOR STRUGGLES
It’s worth bearing in mind, retailers like Hollister and FatFace may just choose to close underperforming branches while opening them in areas they think will draw in more sales.
With that said, the retail sector has been battered in recent years due to a concoction of factors.
The Coronavirus Pandemic saw lots of retailers struggle for footfall into stores as the trend of online shopping grew.
Higher cost of living since inflation soared in 2022 has hit households’ pockets too, meaning they’ve got less spare cash.
Data published by the Centre for Retail Research at the start of the year revealed over 13,479 high street shops closed in 2024, made up of 11,341 independent stores.
Meanwhile, 2,138 stores were shut by larger chains over the same period.
The foundation predicted more pain to come in 2025 too, as it forecast 17,350 sites to shut across the year.
It said this was linked to the upcoming hike to employer national insurance contributions (NICs) and minimum wage.
The hike in employer NICs will see businesses have to pay more tax on their workers’ earnings.
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.
