John Lewis confirms definite closure of eight stores

 

In a sad announcement, the department store company John Lewis has revealed that it is closing down eight of its outlets for good. This is bad news for its employees since it is putting 1300 jobs at risk.

Two of these sites are found in Birmingham and Watford. There were first earmarked for permanent closure in July since they were already suffering from financial issues. According to the firm, the decision to shut down these eight outlets was motivated by several factors. It advanced that they were in trouble even before the outbreak of the pandemic and the shift towards online shopping did not help. Indeed, this, combined with the health crisis, has accelerated the inevitable closure.

Before the coronavirus, 40% of John Lewis’s sales were conducted on the Web. Now, this figure has increased to 60-70% of its total operations. Thus, since more people are buying online, these eight stores “would not be commercially viable in the future”.

The news of this closure follows the prediction of the Centre for Retail Research which advanced that 20,000 shops will permanently shut their doors this year. Indeed, several firms, such as Cath Kidston, Laura Ashley, Debenhams, Oasis, Warehouse and Aldo, have collapsed or gone into administration because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The closure will be permanent