A 160-year-old toy shop is the latest family business to fall victim to a wave of closures decimating high streets and legacy stores.
More than 12,800 shops shut across the UK last year. Cool Britannia is gone from Oxford Street. Bath’s historic department store and Lancashire’s Oddie’s Bakery closed. Even WH Smith isn’t immune.
Now it’s the Black Country’s BD Price, which has been selling bicycles and toys in the village of Sedley, near Dudley, since 1865.
While the immediate cause is retirement – owner Dan Price is 84 – it’s a sign of dark times ahead.
He said: ‘We’re closing due to a combination of ages and a lack of trade, as footfall has decreased, and overheads have increased.
‘People are just hard-up at the moment.’
Toy sales fell last year, while the country sold the fewest bicycles since 1970.
Mr Price, the founder’s great-grandson, told the Express and Star: ‘I recently saw a man who said “I used to make toy prams for you”, but how many girls do you see pushing toy prams today?
‘We don’t sell board games any more, either, people don’t play them, it is all click, click on the computer games.
‘The majority of our customers today are older people who collect the toys and models that they had as kids for nostalgic purposes.’
Energy prices might have fallen since the initial shock of Putin invading Ukraine, but they’ve settled at a higher level than they’ve been in decades.
Couple that with rising tax and a hike in the minimum wage, and businesses say they’re having a hard time.
‘Because we own the building, we don’t have to worry about rent’, Mr Price said.
‘But if we did, we wouldn’t have been able to carry on. We do online sales, and that is what has kept the business going.
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‘This current government isn’t helping at all, you can’t increase taxes by the amount they have.
‘The young lads don’t buy Airfix kits, its all click click, click on their electronic devices.’
Mr Price is having such a hard time, he can’t find a buyer for the shop he’s run for the last 60 years.
‘It’s sad, but I’m quite relieved to finally be retiring’, he said. No exact date for closure has been decided.
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