Keffie12 I quite agree that most closed because they were no longer profitable. But some of us were the people still patronising them when others had drifted away - for me I was a regular customer at East right until the end and bought up items in the closing down sale.
In other cases it is sheer nostalgia. We had drifted from shopping in a store because we were now in a different age group, or they didn't keep up with the times or, as with Laura Ashley and Cath Kidson, once the brand was sold on to 'private venture capitalists' or some other such group and the eponymous founder was no longer involved, the whole brand loses its way. When Laura Ashley died her husband took over and he had a very sure eye, but the children lacked that certain something their parents had and sold it on and it was a basket case ever after.
It is happening to M&S, once the founding family was no longer involved it has staggered from problem to problem.