A POPULAR discount chain has revealed plans to shut its last store as it prepares to disappear from the high street for good.
Latifs, a discount homeware chain based in Birmingham, is closing its last branch in Pickford St, Digbeth.
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The store won’t close until December 2025, but it’s owners have already launched a major closing down sale.
Offers include a bottle of bleach for a £1 and a six piece stainless steel, which has been reduced from £50 to £20.
It has also slashed the price of a 10.5 tog duvet, which has been reduced from £15 to £4.99.
Parents will also be pleased to hear that a packed of Disney Frozen Charm Necklaces has been reduced to 49p down from £5.97.
Shoppers were quick to share their heartbreak over the closure.
Commenting under a social media post, one person wrote: “Sad your are closing down”.
The shop has also received glowing reviews with one person writing that it had a “good selection of items at a reasonable price.”
While a third person said: “Love this shop from when i was little and it was around the corner from where it is now. Always has a bargain.”
Latifs was founded in Birmingham in 1956 and is famed for its slogan of saving shoppers “pounds not pennies”.
Shoppers can bag anything at a reduced cost, including bedding, linen, towels, plasticware, kitchenware, rugs, and much, much more.
This was the last remaining Latifs store after it shut its branch in Bilston, Wolverhampton last year.
The store, located in the Loxdale Industrial Estate on Northcott Road, shut in November.
But bargain hunters can still shop its deals on its online website which will remain open.
And it appears it is not all doom and gloom with a comment from the store under a social media video confirming it has plans for a grand return.
Latifs said it was working on a new concept store for 2026 at a new location.
Details of where the store will located and when it will open still remain under wraps.
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
The news comes amid a troubling time for the UK retail sector.
Last week, The Sun revealed Select Fashion was on the verge of collapse as it boarded up 35 of its affordable clothing stores.
New Look is ramping up a store closure programme ahead of April’s National Insurance hike.
Approximately a quarter of the retailer’s 364 stores are at risk when their leases expire.
This equates to about 91 stores, with a significant impact on its 8,000-strong workforce.
Elsewhere, Pepco Group, the owner of Poundland stores in the UK, has hired hired advisory firm Teneo to oversee the sale of the business.
It comes after Pepco said it was looking at “all strategic options” to separate Poundland from its brand.
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.”
