6,000 corner shops could close across the UK in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, a retail expert has warned.
Despite independent convenience stores playing a pivotal role during the pandemic by supporting local communities, many store owners are facing the prospect of closure.
The number of convenience stores in Britain has already fallen by around five percent over the last five years, to just under 47,000. Most of those comprise independent, family-run businesses.
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Some 3,000 stores have closed their doors in the UK since 2012 and Gerard Rego, founder of B2B ecommerce platform Subscribbe, predicts more than double that could close within the next five years.
Stores are being squeezed by increasing competition from subscription services, ‘local’ supermarkets and the knock-on effects of Covid 19.
Rego said: “I would expect that unless things change dramatically, we will lose at least 6,000 in the next five years.
“We encountered cases where in order to keep going, some family members are working 12-hour days, seven days a week and paying themselves just £4 an hour. That’s the worst case we encountered, but I think thousands of people in the sector are getting well under minimum wage.
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“Their businesses are unsustainable with such narrow margins. The whole sector is in critical condition.”
Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers’ Association agreed the problem must be addressed now.
Goodacre said: “The independent convenience store sector was already being hit by the proliferation of smaller supermarkets like Tesco Extra, Co-Op and and Sainbury’s, as well as app-based home delivery services even before the pandemic – and Covid only increased their problems as more people went back to doing one big weekly supermarket shop rather than regular smaller shops locally.”
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