Major high street electrical chain with over 300 stores to close branch before Christmas
A MAJOR high street electrical chain with over 300 stores is to close one of its branches before Christmas.
Tech giant Currys will close one of its stores in a busy retail park within weeks.
The Cabot Circus store, located in Bristol city centre, will permanently close at the beginning of next month.
A Currys spokesperson said: “Regrettably, this has been a decision taken by our landlord to close our Cabot Circus store.
“We are working very closely with the Cabot team to discuss potential redeployment opportunities.
“The store will close on Saturday, December 7.”
Currys has over 300 stores across the UK and is the nation’s leading electrical brand.
A new retailer could take its spot in the Bristol shopping centre, however this is yet to be confirmed.
If you live in Bristol, and the Cabot Circus branch is your most local store, you can use the store finder on the Currys website to find your new nearest store.
The closest locations are South Bristol Retail Park, Longwell Green, Cribbs Causeway, Bath and Weston-super-Mare.
Of course, you can always order products for Christmas online and if you can’t make the journey before the branch closes.
Currys delivery prices tend to vary depending on the size and weight of the product you’re buying.
For example, if you are ordering a small product like an air fryer, you will have to pay £5.99.
While if you’re ordering a heftier product like a washing machine, you may be charged £45.
When ordering online make sure to compare prices with other stores before you buy.
You can do this by selecting the “Sort By” tool on a range of retailer’s websites and viewing their cheapest items first.
If you’re looking for similar brands to Currys, comparison expert Which? recommends Richer Sounds or John Lewis for tech purchases based on customer satisfaction surveys.
More closures in the area
Currys isn’t the only high street brand to leave the retail complex in the heart of Bristol.
In November last year, Showcase Cinema de Luxe closed its doors for good, despite being the city’s biggest picture house.
Following this closure, the centre’s House of Fraser also shut down – as well as many restaurant and bar favourites such as Coal Kitchen, Rumble Jungle Golf and Casa Brasil.
But some new brands have also entered the scene – the venue has welcomed its own Stradivarius, Lids and German Doner Kebab branches.
It was also confirmed that a Marks & Spencers flagship store will be joining Cabot Circus, with £21 million being invested in the transformation.
Other major city centres which have welcomed new major stores include Manchester Trafford Centre, with beauty giant Sephora having launched this summer.
H&M also launched a brand new store in Chelsea, London at the beginning of this year.
And active wear brand Gymshark is planning to join stores in Westfield White City early next year after a successful year in Stratford.
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.
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