Homemaker and Miss Selfridge open for last time on Saturday

‘Everything must go’ was written on a sign outside Homemaker as islanders looked around the shop for their last-minute bargains.

‘I think all the good bits have gone already,’ said Paula Wilson as she left the shop for the last time.

‘It’s a shame it’s closing because it was great for furniture, it’s hard to get that over here.’

Gareth and Annie Ashmead were also sad to see the shop close and hoped staff would be looked after still by the Channel Islands Co-operative Society.

‘It would be good for a similar shop to open for a bit of competition on homeware items,’ Mrs Ashmead said.

‘With competition comes competitive prices which would be good for the island.’

The couple bought a remote control for 50p.

Paul Banbury said he did not often go to the Homemaker store when it was open but heard from fellow islanders it was a staple in the retail industry.

‘I’d like to see another shop like it, I’m not sure where you’d go to replace things you’d buy here,’ he said.

Employees were offered the chance to stay with the company in different areas as the Co-operative Society intends to focus on food.

Five of the 17 affected accepted the offer.

Some of the items remaining on the last day were cables, remote controls, plugs and light bulbs.

One of the reasons for the Guernsey closure was that the Jersey Homemaker closed in 2016, which meant the Co-op lost the economy of scale when ordering goods. The Jersey site was taken over by homeware store Dunelm.

The Guernsey branch of Miss Selfridge also had its final trading day on Saturday due to declining turnover and rising operating costs identified in a review of business.

Miss Selfridge was operated in the Commercial Arcade as a concession by Creasey’s, under which arrangement Creasey’s provided premises and covered all operational costs except staff, who were directly employed by the Arcadia Group.