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?

Tbf, Debenhams is pretty depressing isn't it. They're mostly dark and dingy and anything you can get in there you can get much cheaper online or somewhere else.

The ones in the shopping centres I go into have definitely got quieter over the past few years.

That being said, I have a £25 voucher to use, better get on with it!

No, even John Lewis is declining

Customer service is rubbish these days

I agree that Debenhams is synonymous with the 80s. The perfume area seems to exude a choking smell of Poison.

There is never anyone in my local branch. If I have gone in I am the sole person wandering round. They have "younger" ranges of clothes, but I can't see dd going in there for a browse. She just wouldn't think of it.

I used to think that councils = evil because of the rates/rents. Then I read that many landlords are actually not a physical landlord, but commercial property funds, eg a pension fund. They cannot lower rents to peppercorn levels without disadvantaging their members. So you yourself might be via your pension invested in commercial property, and would not benefit from a reduction in rents.

Sorry, x posted, TheFaerieQueene !

Agreed. John Lewis is less the store it was. Still the best of a bad bunch, though.

I last went in Debenhams about 10 years ago. It was old fashioned and awful to find your way round then.

The rise of charity shops on the high street is a telling sign of the economy. Charities are exempt from business rates and have tax relief on rents.

That's where most high streets are heading.

@Mc180768 charity shops seem to be suffering to I know of 3 on our local high street which closed down recently

Our John Lewis is still fantastic. I love it, staff are so helpful. Great range of clothes and really good bargains in the sales

I agree that charity shops are not doing well. They might do in "naice" areas, but in the town near me many are closing down. No one wants second-hand Primark priced at more than a new item, nor a dog-eared copy of Fifty Shades of Grey at £1.50. If people have stuff worth anything they tend to car boot it/Gumtree it before schlepping heavy bags to a town-centre charity shop.

The only things I buy online are very specialised things that would be hard to find in the shops. Everything else I like to go and look at.

Our Debenhams has a Maisons Du Monde outlet inside, it's really nice. I'm going to be sad if that goes.

One of our local charities has gone 'out of town'. They have a nice big unit with lots of space and you can drive there easily with a car full.

Before, we used to go to the nearest small town, drive down the high street before 10am (after which time it was forbidden), and drop off a box at a time at each shop as that is what they could cope with.

Love Debenhams in Oxford. I love departments stores. The bra fitting is always much better and they are helpful.

@anitagreen - Certainly, smaller charities are suffering. Larger ones that survive this economic downturn are thriving. Granted,;they have had to increase their prices but they do have mostly volunteers in their shops which keep their wages bill down.

Our high street consists of pawn shops & charity shops . With Costa dotted in there.

John Lewis does slightly better because it’s aimed at a more middle class demographic and stocks a variety of niche brands that aren’t widely available. They also offer an extra year’s guarantee on electrical items. Debenhams on the other hand has nothing that can’t be bought elsewhere.

Charity shops are going downhill because they’re getting greedy imo. I used to go for a browse in the hope of picking up a bargain, and would probably buy several other items while I was there. Everyone was a winner. Now I don’t bother to go to charity shops at all because I know that all the decent items will have been googled, identified, and either priced at top market rate or put on EBay. There are no bargains to be found any more.

I am a bit sad. I like wandering around department stores and they are brilliant for when you want a few things of different sorts in a hurry .

So when I was going aborad recently I wanted a new smart jacket, a spare charging lead, a new small purse , some new socks and tights , a small cross body bag and a smallsewing kit. I found them all in one Dept Store (Debenhams near us) in a total of 1.5 hrs of shopping and I got a coffeee and a cake as well. The whole experience was actually quite pleaseant

Otherwise I would have been traipsing round town visiting various different shops and it would have taken ages. I was leaving the next day so online was no good.

Yes I could have been better organised but my trip was quite short notice and I needed smarter clothes and a few ad hoc things. A dept store was the perfect answer for me anyway

Weirdly this thread has brought me to the realisation that I've never liked department stores!

Like a few others I've scarcely stepped into a Debenhams or HoF in decades - for all the reasons already mentioned. I make an annual pilgrimage to John Lewis but really only want the kitchenware department and find the other parts a nuisance to get through. Does Selfridges count? That can stay. Poor Harvey Nichols seemed to die about ten years ago - I cannot imagine how much money it costs to keep those completely empty stores open. Or what the purpose is now.

I think M&S and JL will be ok as they have a stronger own brand. I still buy a lot in M&S. Debenhams and Frasers sell too much stuff you can get elsewhere. We just don't need them all. However, the Frasers in Glasgow is great (and the original one) so I hope it survives ok.

The John Lewis in Edinburgh is pretty swish following a revamp. Still lacking something these days, though.

Can't remember my last full price purchase from debenhams- when i was a kid it was classy (for my small town anyway!) But now it's one big jumble sale and staff who stand around chatting rather than helping customers

The only time I go into department stores is a) to browse for Christmas presents when I’ve run out of all other ideas, or b) to visit specific make up concessions. I rarely go in just for a browse. I don’t really have the disposable income to just shop for whatever, so when I’m shopping I’ll be looking for just a new pair of jeans (for example).

Department stores are nightmares if you’re looking for a specific thing. Instead of all jeans being in one place, dresses in another, and coats being in another, you have to go through numerous tiny concessions. It’s a pain in the arse.

Give me TKMaxx any day of the week. I quite like Debenhams because it reminds me of my childhood and my mum, so I’ll be sad to see it go, but for me department stores just don’t work as a model.

If I had a lot of disposable income just to browse and pick up a few things I liked, I think it would be another matter.

The new John Lewis store that opened a week ago in Cheltenham is stunning and I think it will do very well.

I quite like a look around Debenhams but when I think of the High street now I only go into a handful of shops when I go into town. I usually know what I am buying before I go so not a great one for browsing.

Our local Homebase is closing and it too is like a car boot sale, they have turned half of the lights off already so very gloomy.

I absolutely hate shopping online. I like to see what I'm buying first, especially clothes and food. I don't go into department stores much though, everything I need can be bought in a big supermarket or ordered at Argos.
Department stores are old fashioned now, I think they hark back to a time when shopping was an experience and most consumer goods were considered luxuries, and something that was supposed to last for a long time so you expected to pay a lot of money for it.

I'm going to go all 'back when it was fields' here ... in my teens (80's) Ealing Broadway (which was hardly a shopping mecca) used to sustain 3 department stores at once. We had John Sanders (anyone remember that?), the new Bentalls, (opened by the queen no less) and ... another one opposite John Sanders. Cannot remember the name of it but it was a weird rambling place. I knew every nook and cranny of all 3 and the skint 12/13 yo me loved looking at all the 'posh stuff'.

Couple of years later i'd be in Central London every weekend. Me and my mate would be mooching about in Libertys, Harrods, Harvey Nicks and, a couple of times, Fortnum and Mason's. (although it was hard to wade through the ankle depth carpet in there). We'd also be found in Carnaby st, wonderfully gloomy kensington market, Hyper Hyper and the weird market in Kings Road Chelsea, which were like department stores gone a bit apocalyptic. It never lost it's appeal for us.

I think this is where my love of department stores comes from. Nostalgia. I LOVE the fact they're like stepping back in time. Just take me back to the 80s with my ripped fishnets please!

You sound right posh Laiste, I was usually found at Clockhouse in C&A.

Mum used to take us to Rackhams Department Store in Birmingham every Christmas to cry on santa's knee though.