What the highstreets will look like in 10 years?

[whoamI00]

According to DM, M&S announces it will be closing 67 stores over the next five years. It's understandable given previous lockdown and the fact that more people shop on-line. I presume if the big corporation like M&S closes their shops then small stores will be difficult to make enough profit and they may follow the same step as M&S does.
What do you think the highstreets will look like in 10 years?

I go to my little local high street for drinks and eating frequently, butchers and beauty salon less often. I buy pretty much everything else at the supermarket or online. I suspect shops will reflect this in future.

I hate clothes shopping online. Womens sizing is awful. And I don’t have the budget to get three different sizes of jeans of different styles. I will now drive over an hour to lakeside or Bluewater to go clothes shopping as they have shops. Wonder how long they will last for.
I have an out of town next near me so I always end up going there. But other than that we have nothing here anymore. I miss Debenhams for clothes so much

Depends on area but near me more upmarket cafes / food places than anything

Probably because more are wfh and go out locally

WHSmith will be hanging on. Used to be a joke amongst colleagues that they're 'the cockroaches of the high st' whatever happens, you'll never get rid of them!

I come from a place in the uk with 2 main towns seperated by about 8 miles. I notice the affluent town is busy with lots of shops (albeit the odd boarded up one), while the poorer one has been dead for years.

Also I have lived in a couple of countries where there is nowhere near in the inequality as in the uk. They still have busy city and suburb shops. I think people like shopping in person. Just lack of money drives people online.

The death of the high street will happen in the uk and it's really sad.

I expect high streets will just become residential areas in time. A few cafes, charity shops and expensive gift shops for mooching here and there. The slightly out of town big stores with free parking will continue to do well I reckon. I think parking near high streets is the issue really, that and people working more, less leisure time to go shopping and the convenience of ordering exactly what you want to your door.

Older people I know really struggle to buy things online, my mum in particular. Every time she tries to buy something on line she gets in such a state and I get a frantic phone call. But if she goes to an actual shop she can never find exactly what she wants, so I get moaned to about that too. It’s that weird in between stage at the moment where the old ways of doing things don’t work anymore but many people aren’t quite ready for the new.

WHSmith will be hanging on. Used to be a joke amongst colleagues that they're 'the cockroaches of the high st' whatever happens, you'll never get rid of them!

Yes - but people used to say the same about Prince Philip!!

Times have changed, whether we like it or not. Billions of pounds are now spent online, which is all money that's no longer available to spend in the high street. Also, I think the younger generations of digital natives are just used to heading to a computer or phone when they want to buy something. I'm considerably older, but there are so many things I used to go to specific places to do that I now do online without thinking.

We see rows of empty shops in high streets up and down the country and I honestly think the idea of having a large distinct commercial area in each town is coming to an end. Many of these will be turned into private residences; eventually, I think we'll see it that 'there is a shop near where we all live' rather than 'I live in the high street', if that makes sense.

I'm quite sad to think about high streets no longer existing - except as coffee shop/cafe districts and the like - but I think that, just as hardly anybody would even think to get a horse and cart for their personal transport these days, the coming generations will see going out to most kinds of shops in a similar way.

@whoamI00

like a bombs hit does to government police’s over the last decade.

@whoamI00

oops policies

Where M&S and BHS were in Northampton are being turned into a mixture of flats on the upper floors and retail and leisure on the ground floor

@Moonwalkingagain

Their website is rubbish and without street presence I am unlikely to shop there again.

I'd say the opposite. I can't remember the last time I was able to buy something in any of their shops. The rare item I see that I like and they never have my size. I buy loads online, most things which are never in the shops.

I thought it was just my town as it's a small store, but we were away a few weeks ago and went in 4 "big" stores, including a couple of huge city centre ones and a couple of huge retail park ones, still came out empty handed, but with a few pictures of labels so we had the code number to order different size/different colours online.

High Streets all over the country were dying long before the last decade. It's retail evolution, started with out of town supermarkets/retail parks with free car parks, then the internet has been the death blow, all made the worse with car hating councils and their over-priced car parks.

WHS have a long term plan of closing a few unprofitable stores every year, so they don't have the "big bang" of large numbers of closures or entire collapse (like Woolworths).

They also own a lot of their premises so aren't paying stupidly high rents to corporate landlords.

The incorporation of post office counters into their stores was a master stroke which brings in customers to buy other things, and is a steady source of income from the Post Office.

They're also often the "last man standing" in many town centres as the smaller/private newsagents have closed, so often the only place to buy more "niche" newspapers and magazines that supermarkets don't sell.

WHS also do extremely well in airports and railway stations - often the only shop available; as well as their sizeable wholesale arm.

Incidentally, I'd heartily recommend a visit to their shop in Newtown, Powys, where they've preserved (or possibly recreated) a lot of the old features and also have a small museum.

I love that their 'Dirty Carpets' have their own Twitter account, though!!

I find the high street really poor nowadays. Boots doesn’t stock the products I want. H&M has very little in stock and has virtually none of the kids clothes. M&S is always sold out of popular sizes. Book stores charge too much compared to Amazon. Music and dvd stores aren’t even a thing any more.

When I go to the high street I visit a couple of large department stores which have numerous concessions and departments, food halls and own brand products which you can’t buy online. I visit a few small independent shops which sell items that aren’t necessarily available online. I grab some lunch and a coffee. I browse for antiques which can’t be purchased online. I might drop into the museum or art gallery. I do not go to the stores which sell the exact same stuff online, often for cheaper because you can probably find a discount code.

I think the high street is going to gradually head towards stuff you can’t buy online. Antiques. Food items. Art galleries. Coffee. Because what’s the point of trawling around shops for stuff you can order online?

When my DS was young you could spend all day in our city centre. Lots of good shops and cafes.

But now there is hardly anything left except places to eat. Parking is expensive. So I tend to go to the retail parks.

If energy and food prices keep going up then I think coffee shops will close too.
We'll be left with charity shops.

Yes who will be able to afford the restaurants et

I like having a browse in real shops

we have a small tesco and sainsburys still going and opticians....2 nice restaurants....and about 20 cafes of which 10 are just albanian mafia money laundering fronts....so obvious....palatial premises with a few blokes sipping an espresso all day ...chain smoking and glued to phones....!!..the useful banks and diy stores are long gone.

Our WHS closed down but we have Magazine Heaven which probably finished ours off

Always loads of hairdressers, nail bars and beauty salons

You can select different options when you arrange a home collection for a parcel or letter. I believe tracked/ recorded are included. They will even print the label and bring it with them to put on the parcel/ letter when they collect it. Far more convenient.

Maybe even hairdressers and nail bars could eventually go online. Scan in your head or your fingers and then some kind of 3D printer/laser technology will cut/mould/shape/colour them for you, without ever having to leave home!!

Our great-grandkids will ask our grandkids "Mum, did you really have to go out and have a person sort your hair and nails for you in the olden days?!"

Other than the eating then (which you say is fine both then and now) what else were you doing for the rest of the day before? Walking around shops all day? That sounds like hell, even without a small child with you!

This sounds like the “new towns” built after the 2nd world war for the London overflow. It worked for a while, social housing, bus routes and bicycle lanes.