A BIG card shop will shut more stores this month following a string of closures last year.
Clintons is expected to close two stores forever by the end of March.
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The greetings card shop is quitting Whitehaven later this month.
The store on King Street will close on March 19 – on Mother’s Day.
Bolton’s Market Street store is also scheduled to close by the end of the month.
But the exact date of the closure remains unclear for now.
The future of the staff who work in affected stores is also uncertain.
Clintons is yet to confirm the closure dates and whether it plans to shut any more stores in 2023.
Clintons permanently closed three shops last year.
Its Dorchester branch closed on December 29 and a store in Ayr brought the shutters down forever on April 12.
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Clintons also shut its remaining store in Market Harborough in January 2022.
The brand was founded in 1968 but it has struggled in recent years due in part to high business rates and a change in people’s shopping habits with people moving online.
The retailer has also struggled to compete with rivals on the high street and online.
Card Factory is its biggest high street rival, as well as online players Moonpig and Funky Pigeon.
Speculation had been raised over the firm’s future when it announced back in 2019 that it urgently needed to close 66 of its sites to avoid collapse.
The firm resolved its woes by entering into what’s known as a “pre-pack administration” back in December 2019.
Clintons brand and its assets – its shops, staff and website – were sold to a new company called Esquire Retail Limited.
But the move still involved hundreds of job losses and store closures.
At its peak before administration, the retailer had 2,500 staff working across 335 shops.
But by January 2022, only 2,000 employees remained and 238 shops were operating.
By the end of March 2023, the chain is expected to operate 233 stores.
Clintons isn’t the only high street retailer struggling to keep a presence on the high street.
Retailers have been feeling the pinch since the pandemic and as shoppers cut back on spending due to soaring inflation.
Nearly 15,000 jobs have been axed since the start of the year as dozens of retailers collapsed or were restructured.
We’ve listed all of the shops and chains closing stores shutting down this year.
