Entrading, a pioneering Glasgow shop that was billed as “the John Lewis of the environmental market”, has closed.

It opened in West Regent Street in spring 2007 as the first shop in the UK that set out to provide for all household needs with environmentally friendly goods, including toys, clothes, furniture, paint, cosmetics and cleaning products.

The venture has since been copied elsewhere, including in London where the actor Colin Firth co-owns a similar shop, Eco, in Chiswick.

Entrading is among a number of shops catering for the ethically-minded consumer to have closed recently. Bolshie in Glasgow, which sold organic, recycled and Fairtrade clothing, has closed, as has Glasgow’s One World Shop, which sold ethical and Fairtrade goods. It shut down in May due to an “unsustainable increase in rent” and is now looking for alternative premises.

Some organic food retailers have also shut, including Cairns organic beef and lamb producer in West Lothian, in March, and the organic baker Trusty Crust of East Lothian, which supplied many restaurants and cafes, in May.

This has led to speculation that consumers are less willing to pay a premium for organic food when money is tight. The retailers themselves, however, paint a more mixed picture.

Entrading, devised and run by Professor James Curran, one of Scotland’s leading environmentalists, and his wife Artemis, also had a popular cafe, where customers sat at reclaimed tables and ate organic vegetarian food.

The couple sold the business last August to Graeme and Pat Hume, who run Pravera Ltd, a online organic cosmetics and cleaning products business, and it continued to trade until last Saturday.

Mr Hume said he hoped that Entrading’s absence from Glasgow city centre would be only temporary. He said: “We are looking to go back and have a shop in Glasgow in the future. We needed to stop, regroup, rethink.”

He said the business had probably suffered from a lack of marketing, but added that the recession had made conditions “doubly difficult” because customers were losing their jobs and having to turn back to supermarket shopping.

He said that he hoped that Entrading would continue to trade in some form or another, but as yet the company’s website has no facility for selling online.

Cairns farm suffered when transport and energy bills rose last year at the same time as sales at the farmers’ market slumped.

Trusty Crust’s owner Peter Hamilton said the bakery’s closure was down to a combination of factors, including difficulties with staffing, but that economic conditions had been “hard-going”.

He said orders were 10% down year on year when the bakery closed but he was also getting a lot of new inquiries, so he did not believe weakness in demand for organics per se was to blame; rather, the knock-on effects of the recession dented orders: “For example, we had two clients go bust on us and that turned into bad debts.”

Meanwhile, there was surprise and sadness in the capital in response to news that Grays the Ironmongers of George Street, an Edinburgh retailing institution, is to close after nearly 200 years of trading.

It will remain open until March 2010, around the same time as the retirement of current owner and managing director Brian Smellie.

Grays, which opened in 1818, ranges over five floors and sells everything from drain cleaner to light bulbs and plant fertiliser. It has a loyal customer base charmed by its old-fashioned virtues, including the extremely polite service.

But while city centre independent retailers close, some out-of-town stores are expanding.

Discount retail chain Matalan is hiring 1500 temporary staff for the festive period and 300 permanent employees for three new stores, including one in Elgin.

Matalan’s three new stores are set to be the first in a major expansion programme by the group.

Last week supermarket giant Sainsbury’s said it would create up to 20,000 seasonal jobs, of which 1000 are likely to be retained.