Four reasons why Gap is closing its shops in the UK

"Gap is paying the price for years of inaction and in this climate there are no second chances because there's so much change,' says retail expert Natalie Berg.Consumer and retail expert Kate Hardcastle agrees that Gap failed to adapt and"embrace the new customer," by not offering enough variety and not being as cheap as competitors such as Primark. Another criticism is that Gap failed to invest heavily enough in its online sales. Whilst offering money off can be appealing for customers, Gap did it too often, says Natalie Berg.She thinks Gap customers had "promotional fatigue" from too many 50%-70% sale offers. "Gap become much more vanilla and lost its distinctiveness" says Mr Lim.Diane Wehrle, insights director at customer data business Springboard, agrees that Gap lost out because it was "not a new and exciting concept anymore". Gap is not alone in struggling, says Cathy Parker, professor of retail and marketing enterprise at Manchester Metropolitan University, and all of the larger High Street retailers are finding things tough.

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