And there goes Debenhams too. Will we miss our high streets?

[longwayoff]

What will life be like when all the high st stores we're used to seeing aren't there any longer? Will they be just bars and coffee shops with an occasional nail bar and hairdresser? Even £shops are suffering. Will they become mad max wastelands? Housing with no shops?

Never in my life have I bought anything from Debenhams. I've looked and tried on many times but its always been overpriced polyester so I stopped even going in to the store many years ago.

Have never been a big Debenhams fan myself - always preferred HoF and JL.

IMO the problem is they all sell the same stuff.

I went into Debenhams, John Lewis and House of Fraser the other day looking for a pair of sunglasses and they all had exactly the same brands.

Even the clothing stands seem to just sell stuff I can buy in other high street shops. They used to have brands you didn't see anywhere else on the high street. Now they just seem to have smaller versions of shops that are next door to them - so I buy from the brand direct if I am actually buying in town.

I used to occasionally buy from the designers at Debenhams range but I can’t find that online any more.

Debenhams were a bit slow with the online stuff. I bought stuff online to click and collect a good while ago and it took days. I haven't bothered since. At that time, I was buying stuff from M&S online and picking it up at the food shop the next day.

I think it going to go for a mix of big centres, cities or out of town retail parks, people will travel quiet a distance to for shopping experiences and on-line shopping.

I think high rents are a huge part of this rather than just on-line shopping.

My IL want to shop in shops yet keep being directed by the shops to their websites to get things - so it not just consumers making choices but also some lack of choice.

Surely that would be better? I can get clothes online but I need bars, cafes, restaurants etc to actually be there. The more of them there are the more choice I’d get. Hopefully the fall of bricks and mortar stores will also force councils to lower business rates so that it is easier for start ups.

If we think about the retail shops that we still make an effort to go to, they have some obvious things in common. They are destinations that give us a day out as well as a shopping experience.

Examples might be IKEA - we wander around the store, we browse, we eat some cheap meatballs, we get excited in the marketplace and finally we get our chosen goods. No one goes to IKEA for one thing - it's an experience.

Outlet malls - this is another day out. You spend time I every shop, you search for bargains, you buy a whole seasons worth of clothes and shoes. It's a full day of shopping and people spend huge amounts of money.

beautiful department stores such as Harrods - this is a true experience. even if you spend nothing at all, you enjoy looking. You visit the cafe, you take several hours to explore the amazing displays and to see the rich people going about their business.

These big shops need to offer much more than the standard retail experience. They need to become a destination, a day out. There needs to be something to lure us from our computers and to want to visit. that needs to be an end to end experience - excellent parking, fantastic customer service (I think this is why John Lewis has survived), retail spaces that are themed and interactive and moreover attractive, interesting food outlets (beyond the standard coffee shops) and goods that you just won't find elsewhere (think IKEA). And all delivered at a price that suits their demographic.

I hate being pushed to buy everything online. Especially clothes. They never look the same in real life as they do in photographs, I often need to try more than one size, I have to go and collect the parcel from somewhere because I'm not at home during the day, then I have to pack it all up and go and send most of it back and wait for the refund. It's all a ridiculous faff.

I really don't consider it to be progress. It is so much easier to go to the town centre, browse, try things on and take what I want home there and then. I don't understand how online shopping can be described as "progress". For people living rurally or who can't get out and about, yes it's a good option. But it's not good if it becomes the only option for everyone.

Locally our Homebase is a car boot sale now..... closing dec14th

People want wallpaper/brushes/white spirit/compost NOW,not off the internet in 2 days time

My local town is old and historic and has narrow roads and bad parking. They have always tried to get the big stores in because it is bigger money to them. It is better suited to housing, restaurants, cafes and small shops and things to do. It then becomes a day out, going round the historic bits, food fairs and antique shops and curious bit and pieces shops. Hopefully they haven't ruined too much of it with the one way systems, large shopping malls with empty anchor stores etc, to revert back to that.

Most of those 5000 job loses will be women. That's an appalling statistic. Yet more burden on the tax payer.

I've no idea what the solution will be in the end. How is it possible to replace a large department store with bijou shops without proper redevelopment?

I can get clothes online but I need bars, cafes, restaurants etc to actually be there. The more of them there are the more choice I’d get. Hopefully the fall of bricks and mortar stores will also force councils to lower business rates so that it is easier for start ups.

We tend to do a few shops – sometime for interest sometime for something in particular - then cinema, library possibly swimming then a meal. Bigger nearby cities it’s often museum, event then a look round meal.

Last two places I've live council has owned part of the shopping centre and they both put on events designed to bring people in – big food festivals or summer/Christmas street performances which does bring crowds in.

Lack of shops isn't such a problem for us as we internet shop - it's a big bug bare of my IL who don't want to and have traveled into nearby city expecting them to have stock. Though they too often make a day of it with cafe and pub meals.

Reading this has made me realise how much I love Christmas shopping in actual stores all the hustle and bustle of it, the Christmas songs playing throughout the stores, struggling with bags it sort of adds to the novelty for me for Christmas or a birthday.

I like to see what I'm buying and if I can't do that, I use Debenhams for click and collect. I'd miss them, we've already lost a lot of stores locally including the Co-op department store and half of the existing Debenhams.

I think that the decline in the high street is both a driver and an effect of the decline in shopping as a leisure activity; a good thing in principle but I'm a bit nervous of how this will affect our economy

I really don't consider it to be progress.

Unfortunately for you it is, younger generations are the ones that are driving this as well as other factors mentioned in this thread.

People generally want more leisure time rather than a day round shopping, which is good and bad in equal measure IMO

Heard this on the radio this morning which sums it up for me

Shopkeeper in small town pays £50k pa rent and £20k business rates. Next door residential home worth over £1m and owners pay £2k council tax.

Local councils really do need to review business rates as I think it’s that that is stifling smaller independent businesses

Apparently Debenhams paid £80 mill in business rates last year ( I may have misremembered the exact amount but a HUGE chunk of cash) versus Amazons 14 mill. Completely unsustainable.

I'm probably not their target market, and I'm a reluctant shopper, but I've been avoiding the pain of visiting a Debenham's for over a decade now. Dirty, dated, disorganised and tacky. Entering any one of their stores (even their 'flagship' one) is like taking a trip back to my early-80s childhood.

Frankly, they deserve to go tits-up, although, obviously, the majority of the staff don't deserve to lose their jobs!

Went into the Debenhams in Winchester looking for something last week. Parking in Winchester is very expensive, but I had to go for something else. Sadly very much a jumble sale with hardly any staff, it is a huge store.

The best thing to do with these large buildings is turn them into flats so people don’t have to commute and have food shops etc on the ground floor. Would save our endangered countryside as well

This is a small city in the south. Quite a few big names have left our high st over the past few years. We have a general market 4 days a week along the high st, and a farmers market on Sundays. The shopkeepers don't like the market very much as they say it takes trade away from them. I assume it's a lot cheaper to have a market stall than a shop. Soon be time for the Christmas market to open up. All the markets are very popular. I guess small independent s are the way to go.

I'm not surprised to be honest. They call themselves High Street yet sell at Designer prices.

I’m surprised it has lasted so long, tbh. It’s awful.
John Lewis is the only department store worth entering.

I only bought one perfume in Debenhams in the last five years. As for the rest, their stock is dated and awful.

One of the big comcerns for me is as the high street collapses, pension funds which are invested in property/malls etc are going to suffer too. This will have a big knock on to everyone’s future when payouts don’t match expectations.