Large scale retail restructuring and administrations such as Wilko led to a net of 14 store closures a day last year with 5,000 fewer shops now trading across the UK.
An average of 39 chain outlets closed each day, while 25 new ones opened, with a total of 14,081 store closures in 2023 overall.
Despite an increase in store openings, dominated by the likes of fast food sites and coffee shops, high profile collapses such as Wilko, Paperchase and Lloyds Pharmacy resulted in more closures than openings, according to research from LDC and accounting firm PwC.
There were 11,530 store closures as a result of “one-off” restructurings and failures across large retail businesses, such as Wilko. Although Wilko has started opening stores again under new owner, The Range’s parent company CDS Superstores.
Although the 9,138 new openings in 2023 marked the highest rate since 2019, the majority of these were driven by hospitality sites, the research revealed.
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Supermarkets saw 40 new stores open per day, mainly due to the opening of discount grocers, while fashion stores were net 325 down, as the sector saw two large chains fall collapse into administration earlier in 2023.
PwC’s analysis highlights that the drop in physical retail outlets mirrors the amount of consumers choosing to shop online for non-grocery products.
“We believe the step-up in net closures reflects more one-off failures and will improve this year.”
She continued: “It also shows the impact of the trend of wanting to shop and consume services seamlessly across different channels with longer-term growth in spending online mirroring the annual net closures in physical sites.”
The report comes after The Body Shop administrators confirmed an additional 75 stores would close in February, putting more than 400 jobs at risk, as it continued to restructure the retailer’s UK business.
Administrators FRP said the decision would result in 489 employees being made redundant over the next four to six weeks.
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