Convenience stores emerged as largest growing category in terms of store opening last year, a recent report has stated, showing overall decline in chain outlet closures with 2024 having the second fewest closures in a decade, reflecting an improving picture for retailers.
According to Store Opening and Closing Data 2024 by PwC, a total of 12,804 shops and outlets belonging to multiples and chains (those with five or more outlets) exited UK high streets, shopping centres and retail parks in 2024.
This is equivalent to 35 closures per day, a decrease from last year and the second fewest closures in a decade – closures were only lower in 2022.
Openings are following a similar trend, with numbers slowing slightly to 25 per day. This is an improvement from the number of store openings during the pandemic but lower than the 34 per day peak during the mid-2010s.
The fastest growing category this year was convenience stores, as large supermarket chains accelerated growth in the fastest growing store format in the UK grocery market.
In fact, the net growth of full-sized supermarkets slowed slightly from the previous year, as discounters in particular slowed down their roll out plans.
Coffee shops were the only other category with more than 1 net opening per week in 2024.
This category saw a continuation of openings out-of-town and in drive-thrus seen in previous years, as well as chains expanding into city centres as the pandemic working-from-home trend began to reverse.
When it comes to declining categories, half of all net closures are accounted for by four categories- chemists, pubs and bars, banks, and car-related outlets.
However, these net declines are generally smaller than those seen in previous years, reflecting the improving closure trend across the board, states the PwC report.
This year’s results show higher net closures in the South and East of the England, while Wales, Scotland and the North West have seen fewer net closures.
In line with last year’s results, retail parks have continued to grow in 2024, significantly outperforming other locations and maintaining the positive performance.
Encouragingly though, rates of decline have fallen across all other location types over the last year too. For instance, shopping centres have more than halved the number of closures in 2024, with their recovery being boosted by an increasing pivot to growing leisure categories.
Meanwhile even high streets have seen net closures decline by about a quarter compared with 2023.
This year’s data reinforces a continued move away from the high street, where slower openings that are unable to offset concentrated closures. In contrast, out-of-town locations are seeing fewer closures and a net increase in store openings.
The results for 2024 show improvement. Closures are stabilising with fewer one-off failures and restructurings leading to just 10 net closures per day, three less than in 2023.
However, long-run analysis does show the 2 per cent per annum decline in chain outlets is in-line with the wider trend of shopping and services continuing to move online, despite the stated preference of many younger consumers to shop in store.
