The M&S stores closing their doors for the final time
On Friday, shoppers hugged staff as they made their final trips to the store. There are nine other stores within a 13-mile radius, but most are smaller food-only shops or in out-of-town retail parks, including Rushden Lakes, which opened in 2017.
"It's all part of their week, coming here. I used to spend £300 a month here and they won't get any of it now."Indeed, it operates more than 1,000 stores, up from 668 ten years ago. But many of the newer shops are focusing on food, sales of which the company has been much better at defending than clothing, where its share of sales is dwindling.It is near Northampton, which lost its town centre M&S last summer. It will now be the closest for many Bedford shoppers, too.
M&S has operated on Midland Road in Bedford since 1929. The shop was extended in the 1930s, 1950s and 1960s. The company is keen to keep as many staff on as possible, he adds."This isn't an exercise in reducing colleague numbers." The company has kept about 70% of staff from closed stores.Luckily for Mr Berendji, not all shoppers shared Sue and Sylvia's nostalgia for older stores.
In that case, it was a store that couldn't be expanded and was hard to adapt just for food, said Mr Berendji. But he said, if a better site could be found, M&S could return.
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