AN ICONIC British shoe retailer has launched a closing down sale at one of its stores which is shutting for good in just days.
The retailer confirmed earlier in the autumn that the store would shut permanently.
The Schuh branch inside the Eden Shopping Centre in Buckinghamshire will officially close on Saturday, October 18.
A notice displayed in the shop window informed customers that while the High Wycombe branch is closing, Schuh stores in Reading, Watford, and Oxford will remain open.
The shop, which has a 4.2 out of 5 rating on Google from 76 reviews, has been praised by customers for its friendly and helpful staff.
One customer wrote: “Just to say how the staff in the High Wycombe store are fantastic.
“I would just like to say an extra thank you to Maddie for handling my broken pair of Birkenstocks with five-star customer service.
“I had a new pair within a couple of days, even buying a new pair as well.
“What an asset to the company Maddie is.”
The final trading day for the store will be Saturday, October 18.
More high-street closures
Schuh’s departure is not the only blow to High Wycombe’s retail scene.
In recent months, several other stores have also announced closures, highlighting mounting pressures on the high street.
The well-known jewellery chain Beaverbrooks confirmed that its High Wycombe branch will close permanently, after 17 years in the town.
The move is part of a wider review in which the company plans to shutter up to seven sites.
Another local loss was Ruby Moon, a gift shop that served the town for 26 years.
The owners cited a weak trading period, rising costs, and falling footfall as reasons behind the decision to close.
They described the shop as a “heartbeat” of the community, now silenced.
Further afield, national chains are cutting back too.
Cancer Research UK revealed plans to shut 88 charity shops across the country by May 2026, including one in High Wycombe.
The closures are part of a cost-saving drive amid inflation and changing shopping habits.
These closures reflect wider struggles facing bricks-and-mortar retailers, especially in smaller towns.
Rising rent, energy costs, and competition from online shopping are squeezing margins.
Many shop owners say keeping physical stores open is increasingly difficult unless footfall is strong.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms 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.”
