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?