CLOSING TIME
Dragons’ Den star shuts up shop in ‘unavoidable’ move to save rest of business
Scroll down to find out why the retail sector is struggling
A DRAGONS' Den star has been forced to close a shop in an "unavoidable" move to save the rest of her business.
The Crafter's Companion store near Chesterfield and run by Sara Davies was shut by administrators earlier this month.
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The branch welcomed in shoppers for the final time on January 7 with the closure seeing 10 members of staff lose their jobs.
Crafter's Companion, which sells everything from papercraft and art to sewing and needlecraft, also has a head office and warehouse in County Durham which continue to operate.
A further branch in Evesham, Worcestershire, remains open as well.
The closure comes after Crafter's Companion, set up by Ms Davies while she was at university in 2005, brought in administrators earlier this month in a bid to rescue the business.
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Ms Davies then managed to buy back the company from administrators, making her a major shareholder again.
But the decision to close the Barlborough branch, which had not been profitable "for quite some time", was made by administrators before this.
Ms Davies said: "It's never easy making staff redundant, and I understand why it has come as a shock to employees but there was no way this could be avoided."
Ms Davies added after the business had been rescued from administration, she was focused on putting her efforts in to the Evesham store and website.
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The closure comes following a turbulent couple of years for Crafter's Companion, with revenue dropping over 20% in 2023.
The company's most recent filed accounts show its revenue fell from £37.8million in 2022 to £29.9million in the 2023 financial year.
I won investment from Sara Davies during nail-bitting Dragons’ Den episode - this is what she’s really like as a business partner
Commenting on the decision to bring in administrators earlier this month, Ms Davies said: "There’s no secret that the company was struggling post-pandemic, and its owners tried to pursue an expansion strategy at a time of real economic uncertainty, which was unfortunately unsuccessful - as everyone knows, it’s an unprecedentedly difficult time for many retail and consumer businesses.
"However, looking to the future, we have a new financial structure in place which means we have managed to save the large majority of jobs in the company – and in particular in the Northeast of England, and ensure that we continue trade as a going concern."
Sara Davies joined Dragons' Den in 2019, replacing Jenny Campbell on the seventeenth series.
The TV star was also a contestant on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing in 2021 and was paired with Aljaž Škorjanec.
RETAIL SECTOR STRUGGLES
Crafter's Companion is not the only retailer struggling across the UK.
The sector has been hit hard in recent years as shoppers go online and turn their backs on physical branches.
Soaring inflation has also dented shoppers' pockets.
The Centre for Retail Research's (CRR) latest analysis suggests 13,479 stores, the equivalent of 37 each day, shut for good in 2024.
Of those, 11,341 were independent shops while 2,138 were shut by larger retailers.
The data also showed over half the stores that closed last year were shut due to the store or retailer going through insolvency proceedings.
This is when formal measures are taken to deal with tackling a business's debt.
A host of big chains and brands have gone into administration in recent years leaving shoppers devastated, including Ted Baker, Wilko and Paperchase.
More closures are expected this year as well, with the CRR estimating around 17,350 retail sites will close for good.
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The Body Shop has already shut five branches in January, in Exeter, Plymouth, Horsham, Norwich and Sheffield.
Stationer WHSmith is also closing a total of 17 shops over the coming months too.
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.
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