New department store Days opens in bid to defy trend of closures

Philip Day, the tycoon behind The Edinburgh Woollen Mill group, is launching a department store which sells a range of brands from companies which he has rescued from collapse

The group behind The Edinburgh Woollen Mill has opened a new department store in Carmarthen in Wales, in an effort to revitalise the traditional high street fixture and turn around a trend which has seen retailers such as BHS close their doors.

Days, the concept store named after entrepreneur founder Philip Day, stocks goods from other brands in the group such as Jaeger, Peacocks and Austin Reed.

The group rescued Jaeger and will sell the company's brands in the new department store Credit: Mark Richardson/Alamy

Mr Day rescued all of those retail brands and is now testing the idea of combining them all under one roof, along with The Edinburgh Woollen Mill which he took over following a management buyout.

“Over the past decade The Edinburgh Woollen Mill group has built up a portfolio of excellent British Brands and we believe bringing these all together with carefully selected partners will deliver an exciting & enjoyable shopping experience for everyone,” said a Days spokesperson.

The group’s last set of annual financial figures show it recorded sales of £576.3m in the 12 months to February 2016 with underlying pre-tax profits of £90.9m.

The move to open a department store bucks the trend of recent years.

BHS collapsed last year and around two-thirds of its former stores remain empty as landlords struggle to find tenants to fill the spaces on the high street.

BHS collapsed last year but many of its former sites remain empty Credit: Neil Hall/REUTERS

John Lewis’s new managing director has acknowledged that after its next three scheduled new stores open, the partnership is unlikely to open any more. Online shopping has changed the way customers make purchases, and John Lewis expects half of its sales will take place via the internet by 2020.

The bosses of Debenhams and House of Fraser have also defended the department store business model this year, arguing that physical shops still perform well in key retail periods such as Christmas, and are adapting well to internet sales.

However, business rates and a hike in the National Living Wage are two extra challenges facing the sector, which typically has a large footprint in prime retail locations as well as a large workforce.