All the retailers that went bust in 2024 from Ted Baker to The Body Shop as 886 shops affected
IT’S been a tough year for retailers once again as shoppers rein in budgets and the cost of living crisis continues.
During 2024, 27 retailers of all sizes went bust, affecting 886 shops and 17,939 employees, according to the Centre for Retail Research.
The number of casualties is more than half the previous year’s rate of retail collapses, when 61 chains failed and 971 shops were impacted.
Here, we explain which retailers got into trouble in 2024 and how many sites faced the axe…
Sook
Sook was one of the first retail casualties of 2024 and was particularly depressing as it was meant to be the answer to empty high street stores.
The business operated 12 pop-up shops across the country in London, Birmingham, Southampton, Liverpool, Newcastle and Leeds and made high street space available for online brands like TikTok.
Tile Choice
Tile Choice, a Midlands-based flooring retailer with 18 shops, went into administration in January 2024.
Nine stores were snapped up by rival Tile Giant but the rest were not saved.
The business had 116 staff and £16million turnover in the last financial year, but had struggled with a slowdown in spending.
LloydsPharmacy
LloydsPharmacy, once the UK’s second biggest community pharmacy chain, went into liquidation in late January with debts of £293million.
The previous year it had closed all of its pharmacies inside Sainsbury’s and divided its 1,000 pharmacy estate into packages of hundreds of stores that it then sold to rivals in smaller deals.
There are no more LloydsPharmacy-branded sites on the high street, but it continues to operate online.
The Body Shop
The Body Shop filed for shock administration in February, just four months after being taken over by restructuring firm Aurelius.
Administrators immediately closed 75 of its 198 UK stores and made cuts to its head office while its international divisions were also declared bankrupt.
It took seven months for a rescue to be sealed with British cosmetics tycoon Mike Jatania in a deal that has kept 113 shops trading.
Matches Fashion
Matches Fashion, the designer clothing online retailer, was put into administration in March, less than three months after it was bought by Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group.
Frasers Group bought the business for £52million but said it was too heavily loss-making to turn around and closed it down.
The firm was founded 30 years ago by husband and wife team Tom and Ruth Chapman, who made £400million when selling the business to private equity firm Apax in 2017.
Ted Baker
Designer clothing and accessories brand Ted Baker initially filed for administration in April after the company that ran the brand in the UK also went bust.
At the time, Ted Baker had 46 shops in the UK employing around 975 people.
The business had been taken private by US firm Authentic Brands Group in a £211million deal.
The last stores shut in August after failing to secure a full rescue. It was relaunched as an online brand in the UK and Europe after a partnership with United Legwear & Apparel Co.
Muji
Japanese brand Muji, which had six stores in the UK including five in London’s busiest shopping streets, went into administration at the end of March.
The retailer had been popular with shoppers who liked its minimalistic stationery and homewares.
It was saved after a rescue deal with its parent company.
Carpetright
Flooring retailer Carpetright filed for administration in July after efforts to turnaround the struggling firm were derailed by a cyber attack.
The business had 1,800 staff and 273 shops across the country before going bust.
Around 54 stores were snapped up by its arch rival Tapi Carpets & Floors, which also bought its brand name and continues to run the brand online.
The Floor Room
The Floor Room was owned by the same parent company behind Carpetright, Nestware Holdings.
The business traded out of 34 John Lewis concessions and employed 201 people.
The firm also relied on Carpetright for a number of its essential customer support services and could not survive on its own.
Home base
DIY chain Homebase collapsed in November after years of struggles.
The business had around 130 shops across the UK and had been owned by restructuring firm Hilco, which bought the business for a single £1 in 2018.
Homebase had briefly been owned by Australia’s Wesfarmers in a disastrous attempt to break into the UK market.
Westfarmers had bought Homebase in 2016 after Sainsbury’s £1 billion purchase of Argos triggered a break-up of Home Retail Group.
It comes as shoppers have shared their devastation after another major retailer will close for good in a matter of days.
Customers have said: “There will be no more shops left”, worried about the trouble on the high street.
The news comes amid a challenging time for the whole of the UK’s retail sector.
High inflation coupled with a squeeze on consumers’ finances has meant people have less money to spend in the shops.
And the rising popularity in online shopping has meant people are favouring digital ordering over visiting a physical store.
Why are retailers closing stores?
RETAILERS have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis.
High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going.
The high street has seen a whole raft of closures over the past year, and more are coming.
The number of jobs lost in British retail dropped last year, but 120,000 people still lost their employment, figures have suggested.
Figures from the Centre for Retail Research revealed that 10,494 shops closed for the last time during 2023, and 119,405 jobs were lost in the sector.
It was fewer shops than had been lost for several years, and a reduction from 151,641 jobs lost in 2022.
The centre’s director, Professor Joshua Bamfield, said the improvement is “less bad” than good.
Although there were some big-name losses from the high street, including Wilko, many large companies had already gone bust before 2022, the centre said, such as Topshop owner Arcadia, Jessops and Debenhams.
“The cost-of-living crisis, inflation and increases in interest rates have led many consumers to tighten their belts, reducing retail spend,” Prof Bamfield said.
“Retailers themselves have suffered increasing energy and occupancy costs, staff shortages and falling demand that have made rebuilding profits after extensive store closures during the pandemic exceptionally difficult.”
Alongside Wilko, which employed around 12,000 people when it collapsed, 2023’s biggest failures included Paperchase, Cath Kidston, Planet Organic and Tile Giant.
The Centre for Retail Research said most stores were closed because companies were trying to reorganise and cut costs rather than the business failing.
However, experts have warned there will likely be more failures this year as consumers keep their belts tight and borrowing costs soar for businesses.
The Body Shop and Ted Baker are the biggest names to have already collapsed into administration this year.