A Knutsford garden centre is due to close following a “lack of sales”and too many people “supporting google and ebay”.
All-in-one, a family-run business, closed its doors after a drop in footfall caused financially problems.
Jason Stafford, chairman of All-In-One told the Knutsford Guardian: “It didn’t make any money”.
“A retail business in a rural location always struggles to get the footfall. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough regular visitors to make it viable.
“It was struggling for the last two or three years. The losses were unsustainable.”
“Unfortunately the rest of the staff have received redundancy,” Jason added. “It was all down to straightforward economics. There wasn’t enough money coming in to keep that many people in employment.
“It was an existing business when we purchased it and we spent about £150,000 to modernise it. Despite that, and improving the facilities, it just proved to be unviable.
“There were not enough people supporting local business and too many supporting Google and Ebay. Retailers cannot be show rooms for Amazon and others to sell online.”
Anne Stennings, general manager at the Knutsford branch, said: “There’s a restaurant manager, a nursery manager and many other really good members of staff looking for work now.
“It is quite distressing for all of us. There’s a lot of hard working people out of jobs. Some of the staff moved here from Fryers when this was taken over five years ago.
“This is the way it is. We have Fryers on our doorstep and competition from lots of small plant nurseries. In times like this when people have to hang on to their money. I think there was a lot of factors but it came down to there not being enough sales to warrant keeping the doors open.”
