Major outdoor retailer with 300 branches to shut store with ‘everything must go’ 60% off sale launched
A MAJOR high street outdoor retailer is saying goodbye to the city centre, launching a huge ‘everything must go’ closing down sale with up to 60 per cent off.
Outdoor clothing chain Trespass has confirmed it is closing its store on The Moor in Sheffield, one of the city’s main shopping streets.
The branch, which opened just three years ago, is expected to close permanently in early August.
Posters reading: “Closing Down – Everything Must Go” have appeared in the windows, with discounts of up to 60 per cent as the retailer clears out stock.
The decision marks another blow for The Moor, which has already seen big names like Debenhams, Burton/Dorothy Perkins and Miss Selfridge shut up shop.
While the area still has fewer empty units than nearby Fargate, it reflects the ongoing shift in city centres away from traditional retail.
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Trespass, which has around 300 stores across the UK, is scaling back operations as footfall and sales decline.
In 2023, it confirmed six closures, and by 2024, at least 12 more had followed, including sites in Coventry, Norwich and Middlesbrough — the latter of which had only opened two years earlier.
The brand, known for its hiking boots, waterproofs and outdoor gear, is offering deep discounts as it winds down operations in Sheffield.
Customers can expect reductions on a wide range of items including jackets, trousers, footwear and accessories.
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Local shoppers will be disappointed to lose a specialist store in the heart of the city.
One long-time customer said: “It’s a shame – we’ve bought hiking gear and waterproofs here for years.
"Not sure where we’ll go now.”
The closure follows a similar situation in Aylesbury, where the Trespass store at Friars Square Shopping Centre shut its doors for good on 18 May.
Shoppers there praised staff for their service, calling the store “absolutely fabulous” and the team “helpful and well-informed”.
The retail landscape across the UK continues to change.
Other chains including Beales and New Look have also been closing branches.
Beales is set to shut its last store in Poole later this month, ending more than 140 years of trading.
Meanwhile, New Look is understood to be axing nearly 100 shops — almost a quarter of its total.
Despite the challenges, not all the news from The Moor is bad.
Comic and memorabilia store Forbidden Planet recently opened a new branch nearby, bringing fresh life to the area and offering a boost to footfall.
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But for many locals, the departure of yet another established name like Trespass is a sign of the times.
As online shopping continues to grow and economic pressures mount, more closures could be on the horizon.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury's hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: "The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025."
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
"By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer's household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020."
