A POPULAR high street chain will shutter a branch in a matter of days, launching a closing down sale to help shift stock.
Yours Clothing is preparing to close its branch in the Bullring shopping centre in Birmingham.
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The brand, which sells clothing for plus sized women, has been located in the mall since 2014.
It is owned by AK Retail, which acquired fashion brand Evans and ailing retailer M&Co.
But, according to reports in Birmingham Mail, it will close this Saturday, March 15.
That gives shoppers just three days to say their goodbyes to the branch.
To help shift stock before it goes, the inclusive clothing retailer has slashed the prices of garments by up to 20%.
The Sun has approached Yours for comment.
Fans of the clothing store will now have to either make the 13.5 mile journey to its branch in Merry Hill.
Yours also has a branch in West Bromwich, which is around 7.6 miles away from the Bullring location.
It will come as a blow to fans of the store, who in the past described it as a “lovely shop”.
One shopper said: “I love that there’s a shop for us plus size girlies.
“I went in there for one item but lovely layout of the shop , the lady who served me was lovely overall a great experience.”
Last year Yours pulled the shutters down on its branch in the Vicar Lane Shopping Centre in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
Its more bad news for Birmingham locals, who have had to bid farewell to a number of stores in recent weeks.
Clothes retailer Monki closed down its store in Birmingham on March 9.
Meanwhile, Waitrose closed one of its branches in the area back in January,
At the time, Waitrose claimed that “despite the best efforts” they were ultimately unable to find a way to “make the shop commercially sustainable.”
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
Plenty of other retailers are closing stores across the high street as households lean more towards online shopping and amid high business rates.
Soaring inflation in recent years has also dented shoppers’ pockets.
The Centre for Retail Research’s 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.
Retailers are also shutting stores in 2025.
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.
The company has restructured its store estate twice in the past six years, reducing its portfolio from around 600 UK stores in 2018.
It also closed all of its 26 stores across Ireland, marking the end of a two decade tenure in the country.
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.”
