Merry Hill Shopping Centre store by well over a decade, only closing when the retailer went into liquidation over the 2008/09 winter. The completion of Merry Hill resulted in the loss of many big name retailers from nearby town centres, with Dudley arguably being the hardest hit, suffering a 70% decline in retailing market share following Merry Hill's opening. However, some retailers kept their stores in nearby towns open, despite opening new stores at Merry Hill. WH Smith, who have been at Merry Hill since 1989, still have a store in Halesowen, and even opened a new store in Stourbridge during the 1990s. The
Merry Hill Shopping Centre hotel at its base, a restaurant halfway up and a nightclub plus observatory at the top. However, plans to build it were scrapped in 1992. Having already purchased a 50% share from Westfield in March 2014, Intu Properties acquired the remaining 50% from the Queensland Investment Corporation in June 2016. When the Merry Hill Centre first opened, a number of large retail chains decided to move their stores from surrounding towns into the new shopping centre. These included: Marks & Spencer, C&A (C&A closed in early-2001 and the store is now occupied by H&M) and formerly Littlewoods, until they closed