A MAJOR high street retailer with 240 shops has launched closing down sales ahead of a swathe of shops shutting starting in days.
Game, which sells consoles, games and accessories, is pulling down the shutters on five stores in August and September.
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The chain, which runs around 240 locations across the UK, is closing a branch in the Galleries Shopping Centre, Bristol, on September 25, BristolWorld reports.
Meanwhile, a store in the Metrocentre Shopping Centre, Gateshead, is also set to shut on September 7.
A Game concession at the Sports Direct branch inside the same shopping centre remains open.
Both stores have reportedly launched giant closing down sales to shift remaining stock with up to 20% off.
Read more on Store Closures
Meanwhile, a Game branch in Basingstoke, one in Chatham and a third in Southend are earmarked for closure before the end of September.
The Basingstoke location will shut on August 10, the Southend store this month and the Chatham branch in September.
Game has already closed a number of stores across the UK this year, including one in Bridgwater on April 6.
A further location in the Trafford Shopping Centre in Manchester also shut in June.
Meanwhile, a shop in the Victoria Centre, Nottingham, reportedly closed on July 17.
Some of the branches Game has shut in recent years have been turned into concessions.
Game was acquired by the Frasers Group, owned by businessman Mike Ashley, in 2019, as part of a £52million deal.
However, by January 2020, the retailer announced plans to close 40 of its more than 300 stores across the UK.
Today, there are roughly 240 Game stores operating across the UK.
The Sun asked Frasers Group to comment.
HIGH STREET STRUGGLES
The high street has majorly struggled in recent years due to a combination of factors.
Shoppers are buying much more of their products online, while retailers have faced higher rental, wage and energy costs.
The Centre for Retail Research says the sector has been going through a “permacrisis” since the 2008 financial crash.
Figures from the Centre show 34 retail companies operating multiple stores stopped trading in 2024, leading to the closure of 7,537 shops.
Businesses have cautioned more closures are to be expected this year as well due to the hike to employer NICs and staff wages.
The rate of employer NICs was hiked from 13.8% to 15% and the threshold at which they are paid lowered from £9,100 to £5,000 in April.
The national minimum wage was also increased by up to £12.21 a hour.
Some big names have already announced mass store closures in 2025, including Poundland, Hobbycraft and The Original Factory Shop.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce showed that more than half of companies planned to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms also found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
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.”
Professor Bamfield has also 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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