WHSMITH will close up to 20 stores ahead of a major rebrand which will see the newsagent leave the high street forever.
This morning, the 232-year-old British business agreed to sell 500 shops in a £76million deal.
Retail investor Modella Capital snapped up the portfolio, with the stores eventually set to rebranded as TGJones.
Around 5,000 people are employed across the high street shops.
The retail investor already owns a number of British stores, including Hobby Craft and The Original Factory Shop.
WHSmith has over580 travel storesacross airports, hospitals, railway stations and motorway service areas which will continue to live on.
The group said back in January that it was looking to flog its high street arm, as it turns its focus to its money-making travel business.
The stationersaid it wanted to open 15 new shopsin airports, railway stations and hospitals before the end of 2024.
This formed part of wider plans to open 110 new branches worldwide.
WHSmith already confirmed plans to shut up to 20 stores by this May.
Last week it was confirmed its branch in Doncaster would shut up shop one last time on May 31.
It marks the end of a 57-year stint on the North Yorkshire high street, having first opened in the Frenchgate shopping centre back in 1968.
This comes on top of a string of closures made by the British business since the start of the year.
Branches inBournemouth,Lutonand Cambridgeshire have already been shut.
Meanwhile, sites in Woolwich, Newport and Suffolk are getting ready to stop serving customers in April.
The full list ofstore closuresinclude:
- Bournemouth Old Christchurch Road, Dorset– January 18
- Luton, Bedfordshire – January 18
- March, Cambridgeshire– January 25
- Basingstoke, Hampshire– February 1
- Long Eaton – February 1
- Newtown, Powys– February 15
- Winton branch in Bournemouth, Dorset– February 15
- Rhyl, Denbighshire– February 15
- Bolton, Greater Manchester– February
- Accrington, Lancashire– March 15
- Halstead, Essex – April
- Halesowen, West Midlands – April
- Diss, Norfolk– April
- Newport,Wales – April
- Haverhill, Suffolk– April 26
- Woolwich – April
- Stockton, County Durham – May
- Oldham, Greater Manchester – May
- West Mall, Frenchgate Centre Doncaster – May 31
- Orpington, Greater London – no date given yet
TROUBLE ON THE HIGH STREET
WHSmith's departure from the high street will come as a blow to many shoppers.
The brand was loved by many, with generations of customers flocking their to buy everything from Vinyl records to sweets.
It comes just a few years after rival Wilko collapsed, with the brand partially rescued by The Range.
Once seemingly resilient stores are buckling under the pressure of shoppers having less money to spend and the rise in online retailing.
Elsewhere, Pepco Group, the owner of Poundland stores in the UK, has hired hired advisory firm Teneo to oversee the sale of the business.
It comes afterPepco said it was looking at “all strategic options” to separatePoundlandfrom its brand.
The Polish group said it might turn its focus to its more profitable businesses in Europe.
The move has sparked fears over the future of Poundland's 800 stores across Britain.
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 halfofcompanies 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, withworse 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.”
