A BELOVED homeware store has announced a huge closing down sale before closing for good.
Welcome Home in Glasgow told shoppers back in February that it would be shutting down for good.
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In a post shared on Facebook, the owners shared the news of the closure.
It read: “Welcome Home will be closing in April. We tried many ways to keep going during the building closure, but the shop has not survived.
“Thank you to our brilliant team, talented designers and makers, CCA, and all of our lovely customers over the years!”.
The store, which is located in the Centre of Contemporary Arts, will launch a closing down sale when the centre reopens in April.
In the meantime, the business also has launched a 25% off sale on its website.
It will be bad news for lovers of the store, who in the past described it as a “very lovely shop”.
Another said it was “a friendly shop” and “great for unique presents or gifts to yourself.”
While a third said they “always come away with something special>
A fourth said it had the “best ceramics and jewellery at the moment”.
It is not the first time locals in the area have had to wave goodbye to a popular store.
Size? in Glasgow closed unexpectedly at the start of this year.
It is best known for its trendy streetwear and extensive footwear collections from iconic brands like adidas, ASICS, Hoka and Salomon.
But the much-loved Glasgow store on Royal Exchange Square pulled down the shutters unexpectedly on Saturday, January 18.
Timberland, best known for its range of boots, shoes, clothing and accessories, also closed in the city last month.
Fashion retailer Massimo Dutti shut its flagship Buchanan Street branch last year.
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.”