Disappearing High Street or simple retail evolution?

By : Administrator
Published 22nd October 2014 |
Read latest comment - 22nd March 2015

According to Price Waterhouse Coopers, so far this year, the High Street saw 964 more closures than openings, two and a half times the rate for the whole of 2013.

Phones4U won't have helped the stats, and the Beeb is reporting Homebase is in trouble, with owners Home Retail Group admitting a number of stores are unprofitable and in decline which will lead to closures.

We've been hearing about how the virtual High Street will supersede the physical one for the last 15 years. Has it finally happened?

Online Shopping Portal "Not On The High Street" seems to be really rising in popularity since it's inception in 2006 and looks set to be a UK success story, acting as an eCommerce portal for small retailers. 

A US online competitor called "Etsy" has been going since 2005, specialising in more craft based type businesses, ie handmade and now vintage items. They also seem to be growing in popularity in the UK, probably as a result of more smaller lifestyle type businesses, giving them access to a global market. It's not to be sniffed at though with $1 billion worth of transactions around the world!

So is this good news, bad news or just modern life?

I've been looking around for some bunk beds for the kids. I can order them online, I can pick them up from Argos or have them delivered by any number of suppliers. But can I actually go and physically see any first other than online pics?

I had to resort in the end to a trip to our (not so) nearest Ikea in Coventry just so I could show the kids and gauge their reaction from the 2 bunkbeds on display. 

This is where I have a problem, I want to see and touch things. We've just lost our Homebase store, so now we just have a B&Q. That means a lack of competition, but if B&Q decide our local store isn't profitable, then rightly so they could close it down. Then what? Buy everything online?

Maybe someone in their 20's says "yeah, why not?".

Have we witnessed the peak of the retail experience?

Maybe then it's a generation thing.

People currently in their 30's to 50's have probably been spoiled with choice, and never appreciated being able to walk from super store to superstore touching and feeling items, haggling with sales folk etc.

My folks didn't have the retail choice we had, and it looks like my kids won't have the luxury of visiting real world retail stores either. Their decisions will be made online, with parcels dropped from Amazon and Google drones, 12 hours after ordering it

High rent Superstores packed with expensive employees are slowly being consigned to history, as we all collectively decided to only visit these stores to view, then scurry home and get a better deal from an online shop.

The modern High Street which now seems to be made up of coffee shops and charity shops is something we all created. In the same way as the closure of the greengrocers and butchers years before when society decided to start shopping in supermarkets. Work and home life demands increased and time became precious.

So maybe all this moaning and talk we hear about the disappearing High Street is nothing more than simple retail evolution, which is survival of the fittest and dictated by the shopping habits of all of us?

Those of us who lament the passing of physical superstores and independent shops probably never really appreciated them as maybe we should of  

The youngsters probably wonder what we are moaning about as they decide where to get the latest Latte.

Does anyone use any of the new online shopping portals, either for buying or selling? Has anyone moved from a physical store to only selling online?

Do you miss the old High Street or are you planted firmly in the modern world and moving forward?


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn
Comments

Bit of a short, sharp response from me here...

Landlords need to drop rents for 'real' traders.

Charity shops have some of the very best locations and pay barely anything, how many Charity shops does one High Street or Shopping Centre actually need


Thanks,
Kempres

Bit of a short, sharp response from me here...

Landlords need to drop rents for 'real' traders.”

 

Knowing nothing about physical retail, so forgive my innocence, but isn't supply and demand?

If loads of retail units are left empty, wouldn't that force landlords to lower rents as a necessity? Or are there other issues, maybe retail units been given a change of purpose and turned into residential?


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

I can't say i know much about the big multi-million pound stores as i've always worked for Independents, people who have 4 or 5 ' trendy lifestyle stores'. But the people i get at my Unit love seeing something a bit different, not seeing items that you will find in 5 other shops along the same High Street. I genuinely think people are not necessarily bored with High Street's and Shopping Centres, but bored with every single one of them looking exactly the same, same shops, same locations. When you get the odd little shop popping up, doing something different and more often than not, being very one-on-one providing good old-fashioned service, the rents are such a stretch that they end up closing...and being replaced with a Charity shop. So Landlords, rather than help out who they have, getting a reasonable rent and helping to provide something different, would rather take close to nothing from Charity shop's and wait for yet another phone shop to move in and charge them a full whack.

Thanks,
Kempres

Very interesting points here - what do you think about this comment, then?

www.itv.com/goodmorningbritain/money/is-the-high-street-making-a-comeback


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Very interesting points here - what do you think about this comment, then?

www.itv.com/goodmorningbritain/money/is-the-high-street-making-a-comeback

 

I'm not sure which High Street she is referring to, certainly not mine 

Easy cure for the high street imho, lower rents as Kempres says and sort parking charges out!


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

Argos are finally moving away from catalogues, focussing more on click and collect and digital sales. Also you can now pick up products you have purchased from EBay at your local Argos shop. I use to work for Argos, glad to get out, far too much pressure on the staff with very little reward. 


Thanks,
abfabcards

This is down to Landlords being unrealistic, a lack of "incentivisation" by Local Authorities, who won't keep on top of the condition of properties and use enforcement action and I think six months of vacancy before the landlord has to start footing the bill for Business Rates is a little too long- although it is a great incentive with the more dilligent landlord who realises that filling a property is better than leaving it empty.

However, the high street as we knew it is in it's knees and retail has changed forever.  Have to remember that it really started way back with the Supermarket and Retail Parks and the internet is simply the last nail slowly being hammered home....


richardtj

Have to remember that it really started way back with the Supermarket and Retail Parks and the internet is simply the last nail slowly being hammered home....”
 

Very good point Richard, maybe we should say consumer evolution rather than retail evolution!


Steve Richardson
Gaffer of My Local Services
My Local Services | Me on LinkedIn

EBAY is certainly the point to make as a main solution-finder.

Argos are finally moving away from catalogues, focussing more on click and collect and digital sales. Also you can now pick up products you have purchased from EBay at your local Argos shop. I use to work for Argos, glad to get out, far too much pressure on the staff with very little reward. 

 

 


charles peace