A BELOVED gift shop has closed after 44 years – as gutted customers wept for the loss of their “amazing” store.
The Emporium sold a wide array of clothes, jewellery and toys, but a sorry sign in the doorway recently revealed “we are closed.”
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The Emporium on St Johns Street in Wiltshire had been a staple of Devizes’ Retail scene for decades.
The property had been marketed by Stibbard Property for £245,000 and a listing on Rightmove says it is currently “under offer.”
However, the firms website now lists the shop as “sold.”
According to the Emporium’s Facebook, the closure was announced in February and shut for good on March 7.
“The Emporium is closing down…All stock now half price!”, the February post read.
Hundreds of fans jumped to the comment section to share their thoughts.
One person said: “I’m totally gutted, my favourite shop with such lovely staff.”
Followed by a second: “This is so sad and such a huge loss to Devizes.”
Then a third said: “So sad. The end of a very long era with such happy memories.”
A fourth person pointed out the difficulty of online competition.
They said: “So sad but shops can’t compete with online…not enough people use local…”
Then a fifth said: “Oh my gosh, this was a staple of my childhood, so sad you are now closing, it’s live to be able to visit, but can’t see myself visiting home soon.
“Thank you for all the years you have been there.”
In March, a second post by The Emporium read: “This is our last week in the shop.
“We will close our doors for the final time on Friday 7th March.
“All remaining stock items are now £1 or less.”
Teresa Garraud opened the shop in 1981 and ran it until retiring in 2019.
The owners of the last decade Kate Suter and Kelly Harford reinvented it.
They gave it a new lick of white paint and offered luxury gift items through the adjoining K Collection shop, but made an effort to honour the spirit Ms Garraud created, and has always been known and loved for.
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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.
However, additional costs have added further pain to an already struggling sector.
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs from April 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.
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.”
It comes after almost 170,000 retail workers lost their jobs in 2024.
End-of-year figures compiled by the Centre for Retail Research showed the number of job losses spiked amid the collapse of major chains such as Homebase and Ted Baker.
It said its latest analysis showed that a total of 169,395 retail jobs were lost in the 2024 calendar year to date.
This was up 49,990 – an increase of 41.9% – compared with 2023.
It is the highest annual reading since more than 200,000 jobs were lost in 2020 in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced retailers to shut their stores during lockdowns.
The centre said 38 major retailers went into administration in 2024, including household names such as Lloyds Pharmacy, Homebase, The Body Shop, Carpetright and Ted Baker.
Around a third of all retail job losses in 2024, 33% or 55,914 in total, resulted from administrations.
Experts have said small high street shops could face a particularly challenging 2025 because of Budget tax and wage changes.
Professor Bamfield has 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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