More than a MILLION shoppers line up in huge virtual queue to get on Debenhams' website and snap up 70%-off fire sale bargains in the final hours before the 242-year-old chain goes out of business
- Debenhams announces it has lost JD Sports as a buyer and will begin stock fire sale before closing 124 stores
- Gets £75m sales from Arcadia concessions like Topshop but Sir Philip Green's empire now in administration
- Arcadia group, which includes brands such as Wallis and Dorothy Perkins, has £350m pensions black hole
- One Arcadia group worker today told BBC Radio Four that Sir Philip Green should sell yacht to help his staff
- MPs call for Government to force Sir Philip to 'do the right thing' and bailout pension pot like he did with BHS
- Rishi Sunak says the Government 'stands ready' to help the 25,000 workers in 'deeply worrying' times
More than a million shoppers swamped the Debenhams website yesterday to snap up generous discounts as the department store tries to clear its stock before closing for good.
The chain has become the latest high street casualty and will be liquidated in the New Year after rescue talks with JD Sport fell through, drawing a line under 242 years of trading and jeopardising 12,000 jobs.
Debenhams has said it will open its 124 shops with a fire sale of its stock when the national lockdown ends tomorrow.
Handbags, shoes, boots, watches and dresses are being slashed in price by as much as 70 per cent.
The bargain bonanza has already sparked a scramble for cut-price products online, with people waiting in virtual queues to access the store's website.
Late Tuesday night there was a 20-minute wait 'due to exceptional demand' with over 300,000 trying to get on to the website at one point, and the total number of shoppers topping one million.
A bruising year for the retail sector amid the pandemic climaxed this week when both Debenhams and Sir Philip Green's Arcadia group collapsed.
Arcadia, which owns Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins and Burton, tipped into administration, putting 13,000 jobs at risk.
Sir Philip was urged to do his 'moral duty' and sell his £100million superyacht to support his Arcadia staff before Christmas and bailout the £350million black hole in their pension pot.
Hundreds of thousands of shoppers have swamped the Debenhams website to snap up generous discounts as the department store tries to clear its stock before closing for good
Stock in cages is ready to be sold at a cut price in London from tomorrow - with customers encouraged to spend vouchers while they can on 'Wild Wednesday and buy with credit cards for refund protection
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has declared the Government 'stands ready' to help the 25,000 Debenhams and Arcadia workers in 'deeply worrying' times, adding: 'There are negotiations between various parties and the companies at the moment - particularly with regard to pensions - and it wouldn't be right for me to comment specifically on those'.
Mr Sunak's offer of help came days after he used his spending review to commit the Government to spending £1trillion for the first time and revealed that borrowing would hit an unprecedented £400billion this year as he bankrolls the UK's response to coronavirus. It is not clear from Mr Sunak's statement whether taxpayers' money will be offered to Arcadia or Debenhams - or their pension schemes - but the 25,000 people they employ will be eligible for benefits if they are made redundant.
Customers with gift cards are being urged to spend them as soon as possible with administrators expected to block their use in the coming weeks as the business winds down. But people who have ordered items for Christmas online are now panicking they may never arrive with no chance of a refund.
Experts today called the collapse of the two giants one of the most 'devastating' weeks in the history of British retail with up to 25,000 workers put at risk of redundancy in the space of 12 hours. The number of job losses is so large it equates to losing the entire labour force of the UK fishing industry overnight.
MailOnline research has found that since the first lockdown in March, 277,815 people in Britain have been put at risk of redundancy - or have lost their jobs - as high streets across the country are decimated by rising online sales, business mismanagement and months of lockdowns caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Piles of goods are piling up in stores like this one in Oxford Street, which will close within weeks after a fire sale of stock (pictured) starting when the national lockdown ends tomorrow with the business expected to be liquidated by the end of the year
The price of handbags, shoes, boots, watches and dresses are already being slashed in price by 70% on the Debenhams website (pictured)
A member of staff works inside the flagship branch of the Debenhams department store on December 1 ahead of tomorrow's fire sale
Monaco resident Sir Philip was seen over the weekend relaxing in Monaco, where he keeps the super yacht Lionheart
The high street giant, which includes the Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Burton brands, has hired administrators from Deloitte after the coronavirus pandemic 'severely impacted' sales across its brands
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