THE UK’s biggest outdoor retailer has launched a closing down sale as two more sites are set to shutter up.
Closing down signs have appeared in the windows of Black stores in both Bury St Edmunds and in Sheffield.
Blacks Outdoors still has a number of stores open across the country[/caption]
Both stores have launched major closing sales, slashing up to 30% of outdoor clothes and equipment in efforts to shift stock before they go.
The 16,000 sq ft store opened in Sheffield back in 2017, and is located at The Moors.
The store has been described as “excellent” and a “brilliant” shop for outdoor goods.
Meanwhile, its branch in Bury St Edmunds has also received glowing reviews for its “helpful” staff.
But locals worried about having a boarded up shop on the high street are in for some good news.
Both branches are set to be converted into GO Outdoors stores, another alfresco apparel store.
Like Blacks, the brand is owned by sports fashion giant JD Sports.
Blacks Bury St Edmonds store will be converted into a GO Outdoors Express store by the end of the month.
Meanwhile the store in Sheffield will be transformed in May.
Another Blacks store in the area was transformed into a Go Outdoors store last week.
Lee Bagnall, chief of JD Outdoors said he was “confident” the conversion “will offer a rewarding shopping experience for outdoor enthusiasts.”
Customers keen to shop for Blacks goods can do so on their online website.
Blacks, which has 36 stores nationwide, also announced its popular shop on Argyle Street would be converted into a Go Outdoor branch.
Bosses confirmed the Blacks store will be converted into a Go Outdoors Express store in May.
A site in Leicester also closed back in September.
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
Just this month, bosses at a number of prominent retailers have revealed plans to cut stores from their estates.
Garden centre giant Dobbies closed 12 of its stores before Christmas to help shore up extra costs following a restructuring plan.
Meanwhile, Homebase has confirmed that six of its sites will close before the end of the year.
These include sites in Sutton Coldfield, Bromsgrove, Cromer, Fareham, Newark and Rugby.
Three more Homebase sites in Derry, Inverurie, and Omagh are also set to close in the coming months, along with a branch in Glenrothes near Fife.
The garden and homeware retailer crashed into administration last month, but around 70 stores were rescued by CDS Superstores, the owner of The Range and Wilko.
At the time it entered administration, Homebase operated 141 stores.
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.”
