Claire’s Accessories goes under - blaming Rachel Reeves for the 1,300 jobs lost

[ProudAmberTurtle]

Claire’s Accessories has just gone bust - and over 1,300 people have lost their jobs.

I know it’s overpriced plastic and the piercing guns were always a bit controversial, but it’s been a total rite of passage for many girls. First earrings, birthday parties and that excitement of spending their pocket money on some glittery rubbish... it feels like another bit of childhood nostalgia is being wiped out.

But what’s really grating is why. According to the owner, the final nail in the coffin was the massive hike in National Insurance contributions from Rachel Reeves. It wasn't the only factor obviously - the high street is doing very badly, but it was the decisive factor.

How can a business that relies on young, part-time staff survive when their overheads have just been hiked through the roof? It’s not just the big brands; it’s the independent shops too. We’re going to be left with nothing but vape shops and empty units at this rate.

There was a report yesterday that Starmer will sack Reeves if the local elections go badly for him. Why can't they both go whatever the result?

Claire's accessories was wildly overpriced in comparison to the quality. It was not a thriving business model in the era of Temu and Amazon which sell the same quality of products more or less for a fraction of the cost.

The hysteria around Claire’s always makes me laugh. What shop will middle aged women on the internet whip themselves into hysteria about next?!

im afraid i dont believe claires demise is down to NI or staff costs.
With these big retailers its usually related to their debt and funding, not operating costs

I don't think all their products were "overpriced".
The branded products (like Hello Kitty etc, Beanie Boos, Squishmallows) were the same price as any other retailers that sold them because they sold them at RRP.
However the jewellery/hair accessories pricing was confusing because they frequently had the "buy 3 get 3 free" type offers which made everything a more sensible price if you bought a load of bits but expensive if you only wanted one item. This did make it seem an expensive shop.

Same, the prices were completely insane. My kids always liked looking around but could only ever buy anything when heavily discounted (like 70%) and even then it wasn’t particularly cheap. Kids usually spend a bit of pocket money in Flying Tiger or charity shops.

I am not talking about the credentials of the shop - I've never set foot in Claire'.
It is the moral highground, plastic tat, cheap rubbish MN bingo card I object to, especially in the context of so many jobs going.
It's just really poor taste.

I wonder how much Claire’s Accessories was really paying in employers NI anyway, as not all of their part time workers would have been above the threshold to start paying it.

I’m not a great fan of Rachel Reeves, but it would seem unfair to put the closure purely at her door. Claire’s clearly hadn’t updated its business model for sometime and unable to stay competitive with online rivals

I went in about 5 years ago looking for a gift for a friend's daughter. I couldn't believe how expensive it was - shockingly bad value! I voted with my feet, as I imagine most people did. Hence their demise.

It’s not about moral superiority though, their business model stopped working. I’m sad to see it go having spent much time with my DD picking all kinds of stuff for her allowance. It stopped being cheap enough for pocket money, was expensive for what it was and kept expensive premises. I’m sure NI increases impacted - because young part time labour was also cheap labour, but it was always going to end badly.

I agree. It sounds like they did not move with the times. A fatal mistake.

However that does not excuse the posts rejoicing they have gone.

Yep they’re owned by modella capital. They said in their own going concern statement it was demand they have most been impacted by.

If a business can't pay its staff a decent wage then it in inviable and deserves to end. We need jobs that actually pay, not more ways of funnelling our wealth the hands of an inbred few.

They were hardly in a good position before Labour got in. But it sounds better to blame the government than to admit their business model no longer worked and they either couldn't or wouldn't address that.

I agree. As much as people love to hate Rachel Reeves, this is a stretch.

You can buy all the shite they had in there from places like Temu at a fraction of the price. They just became out of date, as many businesses do eventually. They can’t justifiably blame 1 person.

Yup and they used a piercing gun which is the worst thing you can do for piercing.

Their prices were too high for basic cheap tat.

Every business that closes lately is blamed on Rachel Reeves despite many of them failing since the pandemic.

We have changed shopping habits massively!

I do think the government is partially to blame (this one and the last one) but for letting Temu and Shein enter the British economy without paying proper corporation tax - that’s let them offer prices that no one can compete with.

Primark also suffering from the same cause although their European sales propped up peak trading - countries such as France have legislation in place to try and penalise ‘ultra fast fashion’

Good. That’s thousands of tons of pointless throwaway plastic tat which won’t be sold every year. I hope the people affected by redundancy can find less damaging, more sustainable & socially useful work as soon as possible.

A lot of the High Street fashion shops will probably close. Some will get swept up by Next who will keep the shops they want but will mostly be added to the online Directory like many before them. These shops generally employ students that find it hard to get jobs anyway so not really a good thing but MN is rejoicing

How could they be made to pay corporation tax? They’re Chinese companies, they export their stuff here. They pay corporation tax in China

Agree their stuff was expensive. You can get costume jewellery and hair accessories for cheaper in Primark as well as online. A small bundle of hair bobbles was £5 when I last looked a couple of years ago. Was £1 in Primark and Sainsbury’s.

"There was a report yesterday that Starmer will sack Reeves if the local elections go badly for him"

At some point, the man has got to stop sacking people and whining that it was not his fault or he didn't know or someone didn't tell him or whatever excuse it is today. Part of being PM is that the buck stops with you. Don't like it? Sack yourself!

Good riddance. That store was daylight robbery for plastic tat. They should be ashamed of themselves for going under at that prices, pretty sure they tried to charge me £15 for a key ring once.

Our Claire's was six shops down from local Primark. You could get 80% of the stuff sold in Claire's in Primark for a fraction of the price.

I will miss their collection of sterling silver earrings though. There are not many high street shops that sell them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg4047qnpk2o

They filed for bankruptcy in the US, is that Reeves fault as well?