My Favourite High Street Shop - Gone! 🪦💔

[MoominMai]

We’ve had a Marks and Spark in our town centre for the last 96 years and this is the first weekend without it and I’m so very sad! It was a lovely large store on two floors with all the departments and a fantastic food hall.

What’s ultra annoying for me is that I get lots of my basics there from the Petite range which not all stores carry - or if they do they equate petite with slimness so all sizes feel too small sometimes!

It was just so convenient to order a few different items in different sizes - especially bras, collect them in store, try on and return any unwanted in the same day. Also lost the lovely cafe as well, which was the only place my elderly mom preferred to go for her weekly afternoon out cuppa.

Apparently M&S are I talks with the council to find suitable premises for the Food Hall though it’s anyone’s guess if that will happen.

More than my personal moans is just the greater sense of a huge loss to how things alway were and the fact that M&S for almost 100 years was just a reassuring presence almost - and yes I know quality has suffered and prices increased sometimes unjustifiably high - but it’s what it as an iconic British brand symbolised. Next had departed a few years prior to that and now the only biggest retail pull is probably Primark.

Feel free to let me know if I’m being unreasonable in being so affected!

Our local M&S has gone too - a huge one over 3 floors that had been there since forever, such a shame. Nowhere quite like Marks

💯🙁

Yep, same here, we lost ours a few years ago. I have to buy a lot of things online now, which is a nuisance for some clothing items. I really miss them.

Our M&S is the best thing about our town. I really love it. Our council owns the building and can keep rent low to keep it but now we have a unitary council I do worry what they will do as they are far more focused on the bigger town in the county and don’t care about our smaller one.

Ours was a small one by all accounts but it had also been there since before my nan can remember, and it was the only place that also reliably stocked things in petite for us as we're all shorter than 5'. Gutted. Ours has been gone at least a year now, maybe 2.

Are you in the West Midlands OP? My.local M and S is going too gutted. I was gutted when BHS went too.

Think.it going will.mean a massive reduction to footfall. I would sometimes pop to town for a look about. Would always end up in Marks😥

Yes, we had the lovely historic Beatties store also like a real old school massive department store you could literally spend the entire day in. The loss of that really hurt as it was here from 1877 until 2005 when HoF acquired it.

Yes loved BHS too lost that and Woolies of course! 🙁

The cyber attack didn’t help, shoppers probably went elsewhere, I miss the cafe, I would go there every week. I pay 10 a month for their card, but seriously considering cancelling it, as I can’t use their cafe vouchers.

Same here, we had a great M&S - four floors, every department including a big food hall and a lovely café on the top floor. It closed about three years ago, and we have really missed it. The closest one is now on an out of town retail park, which is a nightmare at the weekend as it’s next to the football stadium so traffic is understandably awful on match days. The old M&S building is now boarded up and looks derelict. High street names have gradually moved out of the town centre, and it has been so sad to see its fall into such disrepair with so many empty shop units.

One in my nearby town gone. The population was changing ( large immigrant hotels) - now it's places like Primark and Peacocks and they are the top layer of shopping 😬

Yes ditto 😔

Ours has gone too, without it, I really notice the new chicken shops and noodle bars and suddenly everything looks really low grade.

I’ve said yabu but only because I’ve never had the pleasure of a local M&S.

Better to have loved and lost …..

You’re probably correct. It’s just the fact as so many other PP have said has left the town feeling more barren and whilst I made the effort to get up there I think it will impact other remaining stores a little with its passing and lord knows it was already struggling when our beloved M&S was there! I think I really fear what it’s loss may foreshadow.

I feel for you all. I couldn't live anywhere without an M&S (for the food). Luckily I am in a big city with at least 4 within reasonable distance. Might set up a Percy Pig mail order subscription...

M&S is great for basics, but there's a lot that I'd only buy in store because it has to be tried on. There's no point in going through the palaver of ordering online to conclude that none of the size 8, 10 or 12 fits just because that particular garment is oddly cut despite having had previous success with similar items. Returns is a big, high-fail palver to me where I'm more likely to end up hitting the cost and sending the items to a charity shop a while after they timed out on my procrastination heap.

I want to feel clothes and check they fit. I want to go around shops and get it right, but the fewer shops there are, the harder that gets.

Buying clothes has become so enshittified in the past 10-15 years. Both avaliability of shops, and actually being able to buy clothes that are comfortable, practical and fit normal women's bodies.

We lost ours a few years ago along with BHS, a Beales department store, Next, and now WH Smith, Body Shop etc etc
Before that Woolies, Debenhams.
There is not much left in my town. I used to do all my Christmas shopping there as Beales & Woolies had toy depts, there were bookshops, clothes shops, nick nack shops, places to buy smellies, department stores and cafes in nearly all the big stores. Me and the DC could spend whole days there when they were little.
It is so sad. But people shop on line, and then moan when the shops shut down.
We have a Primark, an Edinburgh Woollen Mill Outlet store and a TKMaxx hanging on, but not much else except the lovely Waterstones (sadly no cafe) which I make a point of buying all my books at.
The Council are trying. Free parking every day. Face lifts of stores. Community gardens. But it isnt working. I imagine Boots will go next. It seems to be running low on everything.

We have a small one and one department store (amazingly) and that’s it.
But no decent supermarket so I hope it stays.

Can I join the forlorn m&s club. Our food hall and clothes were in two separate buildings and both have now merged on an out of town shopping park.

Whilst I do worship at the alter of m&s pyjamas (nobody else's will do) I rarely used the clothing store and when I went to buy some trousers for my dad's funeral I was really disappointed by how cheap the quality of them were. But the food hall is a different matter. I didn't realise how much time I spent there until it went and I miss it hugely. It may have cushioned the blow slightly had something decent arrived in its place but instead we just have another boarded up empty building.

We’ve actually got one already and have a huge flagship store being developed in the old Debenhams here . I believe the rumour is Primark are taking on the old one and doubling their size here. I think one advantage here is because we have no big out of town retail park and huge footfall centrally we do keep a lot of big outlets in the centre , unless a chain goes bust - I would miss one here hugely to

We still have a small M and S thankfully. Debenhams has been a huge loss. It was enormous and you could spend hours in there. No other big department stores now so a visit to town is a pretty sad.

Oh for god sake - immigrant hotels haven’t caused the demise of M&S…..

There’s still the one in merry hill which they are refurbing , weirdly , they’ve done the food court and it looks like they are putting a cafe out where they used to do the entertainment . It’s odd that they are spending so much on it yet getting rid of the high street stores .

Don't want to be super argumentative but part of the issue with physical retail stores is people ordering online and using the shop to pick up and return items like you say you do. The store doesn't make money from that, you haven't bought from them, you've bought online. A lot of retail stores are seeing their customers buy online rather than in person, so closing up shop