After 20 successful years in business, Swindon’s The Giant Party Shop has announced that it will be closing down in the new year.
The store curently expects to shut at some point during February or March, depending on how quickly the stock clears.
“We’ve been in the industry now for 20 years, the last four or five years has got a lot more difficult,” said owner Karl Potts. “It’s Mainly because of Amazon Prime and things like that. We just can’t compete, it’s just absolutely impossible.”
“We obviously don’t want to close now because it’s our biggest period this quarter with Halloween and Christmas, but we’re doing a sale now and will do another one in the new year to hopefully get rid of the rest of the stock,” he added. “If we don’t manage to get rid of it I imagine we’ll give whatever is left to charity.”
The statement on the retailer’s facebook page read:
“After 20 years we have we have taken the decision to close the shop, we would like to thank all our customers who have supported us over the years but we now feel it’s the right time… We are starting a huge closing-down sale, we have lots of stock to sell and it all must go at up to 50% off the retail price, we also have hundreds of ex-hire costumes at great prices!”
Almost 300 comments have been posted in response, expressing sadness at the imminent closure, with some describing it as ‘heartbreaking’.
