A FAMILY-OWNED furniture store has slashed prices by up to 80% as it prepares to close for good this weekend.
Vaseys Style Store in Penrith, Cumbria, will draw down the shutters at 6pm on Saturday and has said all stock must go.
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Ahead of its closure the store has cut prices by up to 80% across sofas and armchairs as well as living, dining, and bedroom furniture, including beds, mattresses and accessories.
Vaseys was established 125 years ago in Carlisle and has had a presence in Penrith for 80 years.
Announcing the closure of the store managing director Mike Vasey said: “A heartfelt thank you to all our loyal customers in Penrith and beyond – your support over the years has meant the world to us.”
Customers have just two days left to grab a bargain, with the Penrith site open from 10am to 6pm on Friday April 25 and Saturday April 26.
Pictures of some of the deals on offer have been shared on social media with one shopper having said: “Amazing bargains!”
The closure will leave another empty store in the town, following the closure of The Works in April.
Last year had also seen the closure of Get Ahead Hats and butcher Chopping Block in Penrith.
High street struggles
It’s been a tough year for the high street with both established chains and independents shuttering up sites across the country.
Earlier this week The Works confirmed the closure of its Margate High Street store, making it the sixth to be shuttered by the brand this year.
On the same day fashion retailer Joules said it’s branch in Salisbury, Wiltshire would close from Monday.
The store will be among several affected following the company’s financial restructuring.
The closures are just the latest after retailers suffered several bruising years following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rising costs, a shift to online shopping and a dip in consumer confidence have all impacted retailers, with even established names shuttering sites.
Well-known brands such as Wilko and Paperchase have collapsed, while many others continue to scale back operations in a bid to reduce costs.
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.
Homebase was sold out of administration and has seen many stores close.
While Boots is set to shut ten stores in the coming weeks as part of wider plans to reduce its UK portfolio by 300 sites.
Meanwhile JD Sports has confirmed it will shut down 50 stores next year.
The retailer, which has 4,850 stores across 36 countries, has not confirmed how many of the closures will be in the UK.
And major charity retailer Scope is also set to close a total of 50 stores.
Some 43 Scope stores are set to close between now and March 31, 2026, while a further four will shut in the 2026/27 financial year.
Others to have shuttered stores or announced closures for 2025 include fashion retailer Monki, Co-op, The Entertainer and Millets.
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.”
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