A POPULAR British store is set to relaunch in the UK after closing its doors last week.
Ted Baker is to now trade as an online business in the UK later this year, in welcome news to shoppers.
It comes just days after Ted Baker’s final UK high street shops shut their doors and its original online website stopped taking orders.
The decision to shutter shops comes after Ted Baker fell into administration in March when a deal collapsed between its American owners, Authentic Brands, and a Dutch operating partner which was meant to run the store operations.
Before the company fell into administration it employed 975 people and had 46 shops in the UK and Europe.
The Sun exclusively revealed in July that the brand was at risk of disappearing from the high street forever within weeks.
Last week, it closed its 31 remaining stores in the UK and Ireland after No Ordinary Designer Label Limited (NODL), the business which ran Ted Baker’s UK operations, collapsed into administration earlier this year.
It came as a huge blow to shoppers, who were forced to wave goodbye to another classic UK retailer.
The store also launched major clearance sales, as shoppers got a chance to buy their pricey wares at a mark down costs.
Today, US-based Authentic Brand Group, said it has secured a deal with a new business partner United Legwear & Apparel Co.
They will now run the brand’s online platform in the UK and Europe.
Jarrod Weber, global president for sports and lifestyle at Authentic, said: “Consumers value and appreciate the Ted Baker brand and its British style.
“We have had a strong start to our partnership with United Legwear and we couldn’t be more pleased to have solid partner to continue Ted Baker’s story in the place where the brand began.
He added: “United Legwear’s proven track record in translating global brands for the UK market makes them the ideal partner for expanding Ted Baker’s online presence in these important markets.”
Shoppers have seen this happen to their favourite brands before.
After Paperchase collapsed and its stores were closed it was bought by Tesco and is now available to but in concessions stands in the grocer.
Topshop is also only able to be bought online after its sale to Asos during the pandemic.
When Ted Baker fell into administration in March it employed 975 people and had 46 shops in the UK and Europe.
Administrators have closed all storesacross the UK with the loss of hundreds of jobs.
TED BAKER STORES WHICH CLOSED LAST WEEK
- Ashford
- Bath
- Belfast
- Bluewater
- Braintree
- Brent Cross (London)
- Bridgend
- Cannock
- Cheshire Oaks
- Dublin, Grafton Street
- Gatwick North
- Gatwick South
- Glasgow Buchanan Street
- Gloucester Quays
- Heathrow T2
- Heathrow T3
- Heathrow T4
- Heathrow T5
- Kildare
- Livingston
- Luton
- Manchester Shambles
- O2 Outlet
- Portsmouth
- Regent Street (London)
- Sheffield
- St Pancras (London)
- Stansted
- Swindon
- White City (London)
- York
What is happening to the British high street?
The news comes amid a challenging time for the whole of the UK’s retail sector.
High inflation coupled with a squeeze on consumers’ finances has meant people have less money to spend in the shops.
Also the rising popularity in online shopping has meant people are favouring digital ordering over visiting a physical store.
Unseasonably wet weather has also deterred shoppers from hitting the high street.
This ongoing issue has seen brands such as Paperchase, andThe Body Shop.
Why are retailers closing shops?
EMPTY shops have become an eyesore on many British high streets and are often symbolic of a town centre’s decline.
The Sun’s business editor Ashley Armstrong explains why so many retailers are shutting their doors.
In many cases, retailers are shutting stores because they are no longer the money-makers they once were because of the rise of online shopping.
Falling store sales and rising staff costs have made it even more expensive for shops to stay open. In some cases, retailers are shutting a store and reopening a new shop at the other end of a high street to reflect how a town has changed.
The problem is that when a big shop closes, footfall falls across the local high street, which puts more shops at risk of closing.
Retail parks are increasingly popular with shoppers, who want to be able to get easy, free parking at a time when local councils have hiked parking charges in towns.
Many retailers including Next and Marks & Spencer have been shutting stores on the high street and taking bigger stores in better-performing retail parks instead.
Boss Stuart Machin recently said that when it relocated a tired store in Chesterfield to a new big store in a retail park half a mile away, its sales in the area rose by 103 per cent.
In some cases, stores have been shut when a retailer goes bust, as in the case of Wilko, Debenhams Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Paperchase to name a few.
What’s increasingly common is when a chain goes bust a rival retailer or private equity firm snaps up the intellectual property rights so they can own the brand and sell it online.
They may go on to open a handful of stores if there is customer demand, but there are rarely ever as many stores or in the same places.