High Street hammered as Zara, Monsoon and Quiz stores shut

THE crisis on the High Street has been laid bare as the owner of Zara clocked up its first-ever quarterly loss and jobs were axed at Monsoon and Quiz.

As many stores prepare to reopen on Monday after weeks of lockdown, Zara’s owner Inditex reported a £363m loss in the three months to April, down from a £651m profit the previous year.

The Spanish retail group will also close up to 1,200 stores in a radical plan in the wake of the pandemic.

The dire figures came as Monsoon axed 545 jobs and shut 35 stores, despite its founder Peter Simon buying the business out of administration.

At the same time fashion chain Quiz placed its 82 standalone stores into administration as part of a move to offload loss-making outlets and slash rents – putting a further 93 jobs at risk.

Zara owner Inditex is widely seen as one of the most successful operators on the high street. But yesterday it reported a 44pc fall in revenues to £2.9bn for the first quarter, despite online sales doubling in April.

Around 90pc of its 7,400 international stores were closed at the peak of the lockdown.

There has been an improvement more recently with 5,743 stores – around 78pc of its sites – reopened as of Monday, June 8.

But it still reported a 16pc fall in sales for the past week as social distancing measures weighed on sales.

The pandemic has pushed its bosses to take drastic measures, yesterday announcing it would close 1,200 stores by 2022 to focus on its larger ‘destination’ stores.

It will open 450 larger format stores and invest £2.3bn in existing outlets, IT and its website as part of its new strategy.

A fifth of its Zara Home stores, which sell household objects and soft furnishing, will close, making the concept a major casualty of the cull.

The group said that its online sales doubled in April and it expects online sales to reach more than a quarter of total sales by 2022 – up from 14pc last year.