IKEA has shut two UK stores today just weeks after opening a new Oxford Street shop.
The retail giant, founded in Sweden in 1943, announced its plans to close the Aintree Plan and Order Point store in Liverpool earlier this month.
The smaller Plan & Order Point store provided customers with home furnishing guidance and was devoted to kitchen and bedroom planning.
The Aintree store closed its doors for the final time today.
According to Ikea, the closure was “a result of valuable learnings which will take the conceptual format in a direction to better suit the needs of UK customers.”
IKEA Stockport in Merseyway Shopping Centre, which opened just two years ago has also ceased operations today.
Current Stockport customers are now being directed to the next nearest main IKEA store, the branch in Ashton-under-Lyne in Tameside.
Locals can also now pick up their IKEA purchases from Tesco Extra in Stockport and the Tesco Extra in Stretford as part of Click and Collect.
Other Plan and Order points, such as the ones in Dundee, York and Hull, will be adapted to meet those new demands and also include a small range of home furnishing accessories to buy.
A spokesperson for Ikea said: “There has been an increased demand for Click and Collect services, a desire to shop a smaller selection of home furnishing accessories, as well as the ability to return goods to physical IKEA units, something which, owing to the space available, the current location is unable to offer.
“To better service its customers, future Plan and Order Point openings, including in Dundee, Hull and York will offer these services.
“IKEA also remains committed to trialling new formats including its upcoming small stores, one of which will open in Chester later this year.”
The Swedish retailer had 22 stores across the UK after opening its first branch in Warrington, Cheshire in 1987.
IKEA recently opened a new shop on London’s Oxford Street.
It’s set over three floors and 5,400 square metres compared with the average size of 30,000 square meters for most of IKEA‘s locations.
You’ll be pleased to know that along with the Swedish meatballs, the bargain hot dogs, fish and chips, and Daim cake are all still on the menu.
A plate of eight meatballs served with mashed potatoes, peas, cream sauce and lingonberry jam costs its usual bargain price of £5.50.
It comes after IKEA opened its own hotel in the Canary Islands.
Boasting cheap rooms, a swimming pool and breakfast, it also offers some of their most popular homeware items.
Las Dunas de Santa Catalina Boutique House is a new two-star hotel owned by the interiors brand in Gran Canaria.
Rooms start from £105 a night, which includes a continental breakfast, and works out to just over £50 a night for two people.
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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