A POPULAR furniture store is closing its doors after 12 years of trading in the city centre.
Lee Longlands, located in Derby city centre, has confirmed it will not be renewing its lease.
Instead, the furniture firm is planning to relocate to a new, purpose-built showroom at a prominent retail park.
In preparation for the move, Lee Longlands is hosting a huge “everything must go” sale, offering £2 million worth of stock at heavily discounted prices.
Existing customers will have the chance to get “first pick” during a special two-day private sale on Wednesday, March 12, and Thursday, March 13, from 10am to 8pm, before the sale opens to the public.
The sale will then be available to the public from March 14 to March 16, with hours from 10am to 6pm on Friday and Saturday, and 10.30am to 4.30pm on Sunday.
The event will take place at the Derby city centre showroom in the popular Cathedral Quarter.
The company’s spokesperson confirmed that the decision to close the Derby city centre showroom was part of a broader strategic plan to focus on the expansion of the remaining Lee Longlands locations.
“After the success of opening its Bristol showroom, the business is hoping to complete shortly on the Derby relocation and expects to make the announcement about the new showroom in the coming weeks,” explained a spokesperson.
Lee Longlands first opened its Derby showroom in the former Co-op building on Boxing Day in 2013.
The store quickly made an impression, attracting 50 customers within the first 10 minutes of its opening.
Despite facing significant challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to the company entering administration temporarily to protect the business, Lee Longlands managed to bounce back and reopen the Derby store in June 2020.
All current orders placed with Lee Longlands will be fulfilled as usual, and the company has offered alternative employment to its Derby showroom staff.
The five-strong team has been given the option to relocate to other Lee Longlands showrooms or the company’s head office.
The store will continue to serve its customers beyond March 16 to manage any remaining orders and stock.
It’s not just stores that are struggling.
Kaspa’s Desserts in Basildon closed earlier this year due to issues with its landlord, and a Homebase in nearby Vange shut its doors last month.
The Nisa Local chain, which operates over 1,300 stores, is also feeling the pressure as the retail landscape changes.
High street shops, once central to British shopping culture, have been significantly impacted by the rise of e-commerce.
The cost-of-living crisis and inflation have made things worse, causing many shoppers to spend less.
As a result, stores that once enjoyed steady foot traffic are now closing their doors.
In some cases, landlords are either unwilling or unable to invest in maintaining shops, accelerating the closures.
For now, residents will have to find alternative shopping options as the future of these stores remains uncertain.
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.
