One of the biggest and most iconic stores in House of Fraser’s portfolio shut its doors today despite its location in a major shopping centre.
The department store permanently closed its presence in the Greenhithe retail complex in Bluewater, in Dartford, Kent, today after 25 years at the site.
Next will reportedly move into the unit, scaling up from a smaller site in the shopping centre to the two floors currently occupied by the Fraser group branch.
While some may be mourning the departure of the high street staple so close to Christmas, a closing down sale did give them the chance to nab items at 20% off leading up to the final day of trading.
Locals have sounded the alarm over the implications of the store’s departure on the out-of-town complex. Tudor Price, chief executive of the Kent Invicta Chamber of Commerce, said: “Customers may stop returning once they realise the anchor store is no longer there.”
“It does not look good. And part of shopping in a large centre is that it is a very experiential thing. You want everywhere to look good,” he told KentOnline.
House of Fraser, which began life as a small drapery shop in Glasgow in 1849, was saved from collapse by billionaire Mike Ashley in 2018, but has been forced to weather a tough few years since, with just 14 of its 58 stores still in operation. A slew of closures in 2023 included the retailer’s bases in Solihul, Cardiff and High Wycombe as well as its Cabot Circus branch in Bristol this summer.
It comes amid a wave of UK-wide store closures as the retail landscape continues to suffer from high rent, changing customer habits and the cost-of-living crisis.
But Frasers Group chief executive Michael Murray has also warned that the House of Fraser brand could disappear entirely as part of a large-scale shake up of the company. The businessman, who took up his position in May 2022, told the Telegraph that the department store was a “broken business” when it changed hands six years ago.
“We’ve completely changed the operating model,” he said. “It was mostly concession the stores were way too big, they were under-invested. Our future vision is that House of Fraser will dimish and Frasers will grow.”
He hopes that smaller units will prove to be a better economic model in what speaks to a trend of decline among former department store giants, with Debenhams and John Lewis also closing large branches as shopping moves online.