Once beloved of young girls, what has gone wrong with Claire's?

The Herald Scotland

a day ago

Claire's has been a staple on high streets across the UK and Ireland, since it first opened in Britain in 1997.
It was the first shop my friends and I would run to after getting our £5 pocket money from our parents back in 2010 but, as we got older, we left it behind.
Hearing of the closure, I couldn't help but feel sad, a part of my childhood was being taken away so I headed down to my local shopping centre, Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow, to see what's changed.
Turns out, it's nothing.
The shop looked as if it had been standing still in time since my last visit in 2018. Same purple interior, same packaging, same bright pencil cases and toys that cover the shop wall to wall.
Sitting across from one of its competitors, Lovisa, whose stores are designed in a minimalist, luxury style, Claire's looked like a cluttered mess.
Worse, while it was full of displays and posters for deals it was devoid of customers.
So why aren't people shopping here anymore?
While in the store, I reached for a white flower hair clip, nice, but nothing special. Turning it over to check the price, it quickly got put back. With the rise of Chinese online companies like Shien and Temu, it's hard to justify £6 for one hair clip when you can buy three identical-looking ones for only £2 online.
I checked out a pair of cat ears on an early Halloween stall which were £8. Even those who don't shop online at cheap e-tailers know this is extortionate, one Google search later and a similar pair of ears was on my phone for £2.50 from Sainsbury's.
Even the pencil cases were priced at over tenner. If I was going back to school, I know my mum wouldn't have let me go near them and would have me pick something from ASDA instead.
Claire's reputation took a hit when stories of piercings gone wrong surfaced. As someone with many piercings, one of which closed over after I got it from Claire's, I think the retailer made a major strategic mistake here.
The use of guns can cause swelling, longer healing times and potential complications due to blunt force trauma. When I passed my driving test, I wanted to celebrate. I made my way to Claire's and got my first cartilage piercing. It never healed. I had to take it out three months later. I spoke to a former customer who said: "I knew loads of people with infections and swore I'd never go back".
Their Instagram and TikTok come across as lazy and uninspired. The two social media are a copy of one another. Instagram is an unorganised mess, posts look unprofessional, with dark lighting and low quality. @Clairesstores have eight highlights that are random and inconsistent. One highlight, 'Wicked' has only 2 posts, both of which are from last year. Scrolling through, I found only one professional-looking post, where they used fruit wedges to model different ear jewellery during summer. That was well done but it needs more of that.
After my shop and scroll, it's no surprise Claire's is failing. A rebrand should have commenced years ago. Prices need to be realistic to attract pocket-money customers. The shops, of which there are 278 in the UK, can still be an easy go-to when you need some last minute hair gems, but that's often a last resort when there's no time to buy them off Amazon. And that's just not good enough.