Bexhill shop to close

Clintons, in Devonshire Road, will be shutting on August 4.

A sign has been placed on the window inside, offering 20 per cent off all products before it closes down.

In August last year, the greeting card company announced it was preparing to close 38 of its card shops across the country with the hope of saving the retailer from insolvency.

The card shop reportedly brought in advisers to work on a debt-for-equity deal as it continued to battle “acute financial distress”.

The Retail Gazette reported at the time that the plans would lead to Clintons closing around a fifth of its stores.

The company closed 156 of its shops back in December 2019 as part of a pre-pack administration, when previous owner the Weiss family bought it.

But the firm still struggled financially following the closures and cost-cutting measures. It later explored a merger with Paperchase in December 2022. However, the merger failed when Paperchase collapsed into administration in January last year and its intellectual property and brand was bought by Tesco.

At its height, Clintons had nearly 800 shops and employed 8,000 staff across the UK.

The company was founded in 1968 by Don Lewin, the son of an East End chimneysweep.