SHUTTERS DOWN
Exact date huge department store will close for good leaving high street ‘disgracefully’ empty
Scroll down to find out how your high street shopping could be affected
A HUGE department store is set to close for good, leaving high street shoppers gutted.
Described as a "sad day" for the Merseyside high street, Beales Department Store in Southport has revealed it will be rolling down its shutters for the final time.
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It is just three years after the site reopened to a long line of customers.
Unfortunately, the shop will close on Saturday, September 7.
A go-to for residents looking to spend their savings on home, electric and fashion essentials anyone previously hoping to head to Lord Street may want to move fast to make the most of the closing down clearance sale.
Beales Southport took to Facebook to announce its closure, encouraging people to head in-store with "everything" priced to clear with "1000s of items now £10 or under".
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Beales is selling a huge range of items in its closing down sale across garden, homeware, furniture, clothing and more.
For example, you can buy towels from towels for £1.80, gloves, sportswear and t-shirts for £10, a kitchen bin for £5.99 and an outdoor table and chairs set for just £69.99.
The post has already gained 340 reactions and 74 comments, including a former employee.
One social media user commented: "How sad another store closing, why do people have to all shop online, the pleasure of walking into a lovely store and feeling the quality and conversations with the employees so sad."
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Someone else replied: ";What a sad day another big store closing."
A third put: "Used to be such a good department store."
Someone else said: "Such a shame. It used to be a lovely upmarket store.
"My husband bought a dressing table set from there for an engagement present."
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One user said: "Very sad! Yet another huge store closing in Southport."
Another said: "Used to work there back in the day when it was Broadbent and Boothroyds.
"I went in a few days ago and it was just so sad to see people picking through the bones of what was left of a once great very up-market department store."
The store housed several other businesses including Remedy at Beales, Baby Love and Plaza Cards.
Located on the same site, Lucy Lou's Boutique owners Gill and Lucy Harper have posted a video expressing their own "sad news".
They said: "Beales store on Lord Street is closing in September. It does have a closing down sale at the moment.
“We are staying there until September.
“Obviously this is completely out of our control. We are obviously gutted the store is closing and that Lord Street is losing another high street store.
“We are sad but we are turning it into a positive.
“It is going to give us more time to focus more time on our Churchtown branch and our and of course our website.
“We are still here, don’t worry, we are staying in Beales on Lord Street until around September time so you can still shop there.
“We just want to thank everyone who has shopped at our Beales concession while it is there and while it is still there and thank you for all your support.”
Founded in 1881, Beales once operated 23 department stores in market towns across the UK selling a range of furniture, fashion, toys and cosmetics. It employs circa 1,052 members of staff.
The department store chain fell into administration back in 2020.
It had been hunting for a buyer since December as well as seeking to negotiate down its rents - following poor Christmas trading.
The COVID-19 pandemic hastened the closure of the remaining Beales stores, with the last stores closing on March 18 2020 and the website going offline shortly afterwards.
After the Southport store shuts there will be just one left in the UK - in Poole.
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.
It follows a string of closures in and around Southport.
Argos confirmed the closure of its store in the Meols Cop retail park in Merseyside,
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Sainsbury's, who owns Argos, confirmed the news to The Sun.
And Poundland in Ellesmere Port closed on February 11.
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