The North West lost more chain outlets than it gained in 2024, with 1,311 closures against 956 openings, according to PwC. Not every regional business is following that pattern. Specscart, a Manchester-based eyewear company with three shops and an online business shipping to more than 132 countries, was named this year on the FT1000 list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies. Founder Sid Sethi says the North West’s support for young firms has lessons for Merseyside entrepreneurs.
What The Closure Figures Show
The figures come from PwC’s annual count of chain shops, leisure venues and service outlets, compiled with Green Street. Across the North East, North West and Yorkshire, net closures fell to 823, the lowest total since 2018. High streets did worst, averaging a net loss of 2.9 per cent across the three regions, while North West retail parks finished almost level.
PwC’s national analysis also found that catchment area and the type of outlet mattered more to success than region.
Fewer Failures, Fewer Jobs
The wider picture is mixed. The Office for National Statistics reports that UK businesses closed at the lowest rate since 2016, with the death rate at 9.8 per cent in 2024. The jobs market looks weaker. Unemployment stood at 4.9 per cent for April to June, and payrolled employee numbers in the year to August fell in every UK region except Northern Ireland.
Online Brands Head For The High Street
Brands that started online are also heading for the high street. SKIMS, which began as a digital label, opened its first standalone UK flagship on Regent Street in July.
Specscart combines the two models. Sethi won the Albert Gubay Enterprise Award, which came with a rent-free shop in Walkden and £5,000 in cash. A manufacturing hub in Bury followed in 2019, and the company now has stores in Walkden, Bury and Urmston as well as an online store. Their Bury HQ houses their glazing lab with the widest lens bank in the UK. This allows them to offer free 24-hour dispatch on most prescription glasses, excluding varifocals and complex prescriptions. Sethi was named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list in 2024. This year’s FT1000 ranking by the Financial Times and Statista is based on revenue growth.
Sethi says the award was what let him test the idea. “Getting that first shop rent-free meant I could try things properly and it worked out pretty well for us.”
He says customers pushed the business towards running shops and a website together. “We were online from the start, but stores allowed people to experience Specscart,” he said. “Once they’d done that, they trusted us far more.”
Advice For Liverpool Founders
He is candid that growth hasn’t been smooth. “It’s uneven. Some things you build don’t work the way you hoped, and you have to be prepared to redo them.”
Merseyside firms face similar conditions. Halton Chamber of Commerce’s summary of the latest Quarterly Economic Survey, for the second quarter of 2026, points to rising operating costs, skills shortages and economic uncertainty as continuing pressures.
Sethi’s advice to founders in Liverpool is to stop waiting for a bigger budget or a London address. “Look at what’s on your doorstep, like local awards or landlords who’ll give a new business a chance,” he said. “I used both, and I’d do it again.”