To think the high street is beyond rescue?

[Greyrootszerohoots]

So many changes to the way we shop, it seems like throwing money away to try rescue businesses with models that are outdated.

I wonder if more should be put into physical business that can’t exist online - food/drink and boutique/experiential shopping.

I’d love to see high streets that are pedestrianised green spaces with outdoor seating and places to gather. It could be so much more pleasant than the current badly maintained row of charity/discount/seasonal shops that so many town centres have become.

Of course, I have no solution to the huge job losses we’d face

In person services are going to return & thrive.

Clubs, party venues, churches, Bars, beauty salons, charity shops, tattoo parlours, cafes, soft-play, butchers, bakeries, fresh produce (to lesser extent). The type of shop where you need personal feedback like bridal shops or the profit margins are too low to make online sales successful or the products have short shelf-life. Mobility products, mechanical repair & accessories for vehicles. High demand persists for all that. People need each other.

The "high street" isn't some sort of fundamental architectural structure in a town that has to be there. It's a mere evolutionary response to the environment in which towns became the market centre for their nearby villages. A way of life that has been changing since before I was born.

Same way all the trades that serviced horses weren't some sort of holy business over a century ago. Pretty much the second we got the engine we started losing the horse.

No amount of hand wringing or juicy handouts of taxpayers money would have preserved that industry and within a generation it was gone.

After the fact that the customer base is shrinking as I type (and there's nothing anyone can do about that) the next biggest challenge the High Street faces is the number of snouts in the trough that all need to feed off shops business. By the time their nests are all feathered it's not worth being in business.

Then of course you have the various hatstand approaches to keeping customers as far away as possible with parking charges, restrictions.

And once you have fixed all those issues, you suddenly realise that actually the free loaders holders would really rather the High Street died so they can flog even more "city living" apartments at a whopping profit.

My next post will address the problem from the other end of the High Street and note the number of times I have taken part in a spontaneous homage to the "Cheese Shop" sketch.

(Having a DW who uses a wheelchair also means I have a very high bar when it comes to what High Streets need to be anyway ...)

My town has lost M&S, H&M, Clarke’s during this lock down last year Miss selfridge and Burton went.
Bon Marche, WH Smith’s and New look are rumoured to be going.

I love shopping it’s just such a shame it will be all sports shops and charity shops and card shops other than River Island and Next who will hopefully survive .

I think there is a demand for shops as l hate shopping on line and l can’t be the only one. There needs to be a change in rent and encouragement to setting up businesses to be sustainable.

But just for my opinion and not to go off topic but there also needs to be investigations into some companies who put business into administration and then buy them back under another business name, and if the business has been failing for many years they should show they have been trying to make adjustments to the business to keep them going, l know John Lewis is changing it’s structure but l do feel they had doing it well we’re as other companies have just let it go to rack and ruin and la lot of people are out of work because of it.

I have skin in this game as I have an independent currently non-essential shop without an online presence for what I believe to be valid reasons but many would say are due to my lack of resilience but that's another debate.....

I live in Bournemouth where planning focuses on big developments and the only successful small businesses are take aways it seems.

I want to move with the times but frankly we have struggled even before the pandemic hit, and are now borrowing to stay afloat because our landlord will not negotiate....well he does have his mooring fees to pay, bless him.

There seems to be a very paradoxical attitude to retail now. People want the community feel, the experience, the ability to see purchases in the flesh etc, but they want things cheap, trending and fast. Environmental issues are cited in that reducing traffic in towns is good, but online shopping means more freight and more delivery Van's, so possibly they cancel each other out.

I was a bit bemused by the advice to make shopping an experience - the nature of my shop means that beyond offering my product knowledge and general good customer service, plus doing tarot readings, the only thing I could think of was jumping out at people and shouting "Boo!".

Part of our problem is our location, we are just out of the town centre but close enough to walk to on a parade of shops. There is potentially lots of footfall from office workers and they utilise the two sandwich shops along from us, but that's it. We are surrounded by relatively recently built student accommodation and offices, that is all. There is a culture of street drinking and disturbance, plus drug dealing behind our premises which is sporadically addressed but means that in trying to be community minded I have attracted more problems than providing solutions.

Our local BID, which we are not involved with as we fall below the rates threshold, is all about glossy community spaces but they openly exclude anyone who is not a BID payer, and if you do pay in our situation, you have no voting power because you don't pay rates.

Our lease expires at the end of October and we want to move premises and rebrand - we represent a growing niche market but lack of capital is an issue now. We are aiming for a shop closer to our home in another shopping area, where rents are half what we currently pay, which isn't alot unless you're not making enough to cover it.

On the one hand I feel as if I'm flogging a dead horse, but at 52 my alternative job prospects are limited and I would like some enjoyment and creativity as I work till I drop....this is my last chance. Various caring responsibilities mean I have never paid enough NI to qualify for a state pension, and I resist claiming benefits because I just can't face the complications.

And don't get me started on how impenetrable the current system of Grant's for businesses closed due to Covid is.....

Anyway, sorry about my wailing into the void. As a one woman band, I want to step up and be pro-active etc etc, but it really isn't that simple any more. Fortunately I'm a stubborn old git, so I won't go down without a fight.

High streets have been dying for at least twenty years. The solution is not to increase the taxes on online shopping, it is to make rents cheaper for shops so that they can (almost) price match online services. People can accept paying a little more for the "pleasure" of physical shopping, but not 20% more.

We also need to stop this hatred of the car. Driving into town centres used to be easy, you could park outside the shop you wanted to visit. Pedestrianisation made the whole experience more painful, and it is now often cheaper to take public transport into town than it is to park your car, which isn't conducive to helping the high street. Good for the environment perhaps, but not for encouraging foot traffic.

I think there is a demand for shops as l hate shopping on line and l can’t be the only one.

I imagine quite a few people hated engine driven buses and preferred horse drawn carriages. But history shows no one cared.

The likes of Bon Marche, DP, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Peacocks have cropped up in this thread. All examples of lazy retailers who had messy, dated shops and completely failed to engage with the customer. Plus the ubiquitous polyester offerings. I struggle for summer clothes for really hot weather because of big chest, so I look for better quality t-shirts so they don't cling. There were all of those branches in my High Street (apart from EWM), all closed now. The one time I went in Bon Marche in desperation to find non-clingy t-shirts I tried one on in a changing room that could have been a monk's cell it was so devoid of anything. It was a concrete block, something you imagine in a prison. Bizarre. Why would you make that a place to part with your hard earned cash.

I drive along the local high street to get to the supermarket, about every two weeks (DH and I alternate)

It seems every time there is another closed business. The big ones, like Peacocks, Bon Marche, Pizza Hut and pizza express. Some of the smaller takeaways. The independent cafes and restaurants. The small 'non essential' shops.

At this rate, the only survivors will be Wetherspoons, WhSmith (for the post office), The Works, B&M, some of the banks and estate agents and Costa. A few of the boutique are surviving online (like the Biltong Farm). Plus the charity shops

It's sad. And means people just travel to the cities instead to shop socially.

@therocinante

www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/07/online-sales-tax-aims-to-shift-balance-as-uk-high-streets-struggle

I don't have a car (but luckily I live in London and have a DH to carry my shopping and a shopping trolley). I do shop online a lot too but I would support this because while you are right that some people do rely on online shopping, businesses need to be taxed in order to support our local infrastructure. Online businesses simply don't pay the amount of tax/give back to to the community the way physical stores do- they often don't provide local employment (unless you live near lots of Amazon fulfilment centres), they don't pay council tax etc. If we are switching to online shopping as a primary way of shopping, then it needs to be taxed.

YANBU, the pandemic has brought home how much I rely on browsing in shops to give me a break from home. I know people don't rate Debenhams, but it was the only department store in our town and it leaves a big gap (literally a big gap in our shopping centre that I'm not sure who will fill).

Now have to go to another town where parking is £2 ph.

I don't shop as a hobby, only when I need something, but I can't wait to be able to go and try on clothes.

I need new jeans and after ordering and sending back a few pairs I have some that will do but I need to go and try on loads to get some great ones.

I also used to love zooming round the shops at breakneck speed on a Friday lunchtime or after work if I had decided to go out that eve and needed something to wear.

We have been unsuccessfully trying to sort school shoes online for the DC oddly proportion long skinny and feet so DH is hitting M & S (kids stuff is next to food so accessible), Sainsburys and Asda later while I send back all the wrong ones we have ordered online, so we will always need and want physical shops.

I also feel guilty about all these plastic packages coming through the post, immaculately folded clothes being tried on and then returned.

My local high street, in preparation for reopening, seems to have even more coffee shops getting ready to open. I've heard so many people comment on how they're missing the charity shops and I think an overhaul of how they present themselves would be great. There seems to be a new acceptable of recycled clothes in particular.

Agreed. Town centres should be a mixture of cafés, pubs, housing, boutique shops and perhaps a few small chains. It was the big chains and shopping malls who killed the high street.

I think that the government would implement an online sales tax that would increase the costs of shopping online. That might encourage shoppers to go to physical shops

Why try to influence the way people shop, though? If online is what people want then jobs will be lost in retails but others will be created to support the online shopping.

Shops that will remain are the ones with an added value, for example boutique shops where the shopping experience is actually enjoyable, or shops with excellent service. Innovative concepts, etc

Are we actually going to be able to try on clothes when the shops reopen?

Agree, OP.

The high street can no longer be a pure shopping hub, but it can be an activity hub. The pandemic is going to prove which high streets have successfully managed this when, after months of lockdowns, people are going to be keen to go out and DO something. That can obviously involve shopping but the act of doing so needs to be pleasant rather than just functional.

I totally agree re more green spaces, more outdoor space, slower pace, a better atmosphere to browse and drink and eat and chat.

Also agree about cars or making it easier to travel into the centres. Towns with tram systems seem to have this sorted as trams are very easy to hop onto at a bigger car park and off at the right point in the town.

That all requires bigger overhauls than many councils are able to can afford to do, so everything dies a slow death of a thousand cuts and town centres become more and more visually depressing, thus reducing footfall even more.

@Graciebobcat

Agreed. Town centres should be a mixture of cafés, pubs, housing, boutique shops and perhaps a few small chains. It was the big chains and shopping malls who killed the high street.

At least you can usually get a wheelchair around them ... (you may not be able to get in a lift, but that's people not layout).

@Greyrootszerohoots
www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/brands/shein-stealth-chinese-brand-helped-bring-topshop-miss-selfridge/

Have you heard of this brand, Shein? i saw adverts on fb but i never knew it was so popular (must be because I am in my late 20s and getting old lol). It has barely any staff in the uk, it manufactures primarily in china, it employs fewer than a dozen people in the UK and probably pays no taxes. But it sells an estimated 30000 items to brits every day.

Physical shops like Primark, topshop are hardly exemplary and also manufacture in bangladesh.china but at least they pay rent and hire more than a dozen locals in their uk stores. I don't think we should fight it as that is fruitless but we should definitely tax it so that online and physical stores have a level playing field at least. Physical stores have to comply with local legislation at least with their physical stores- paying minimum wage and council tax. Online brands don't need to.

I agree OP. I would like to see a much more continental feel to the high street. Less charity and chain stores and more boutiques, delis, gift stores, cafes, restaurants and food stalls. I think most people prefer to spend time socialising/eating/drinking these days in cafes, restaurants etc. and I would love to see more of these. It can be really hard to get a table in a bar or find somewhere to sit in a cafe, even in winter. Would love to see more of these and more variety.

And i agree with the PP that said it needs to evolve into more of an activity hub than a shopping hub. Online shopping completely dwarves the high street. Even if the tax on online goods was significant (won’t happen), it still wouldn’t put the majority of people off. Online shopping is for convenience, ease, often cheaper prices and a bigger range of goods to choose from. People won’t give that up.

The high street needs to be more leisure-based and diversify into social experiences or niche avenues.

Our, in my opinion stupid, council has just introduced a minimum £3 parking fee, albeit up to 3 hours. However, the net effect of this is that everyone local, but not walkable, now doesn't "pop" into town for the market, or for a coffee, or to pick up something they have ordered from the shop. I think this is so short sighted. Their rationale was that it will encourage people to stay longer and browse....... totally the wrong concept for a forward looking, modern town centre. Honestly, even if you are going in for lunch, you wouldn't need 3 hours!

There are lots of businesses rumoured to leave our local shopping centre (5 miles away) because they can't afford the higher rents imposed by the landlords. In an ideal world there would be smaller businesses who can take advantage of customers who need in person customer service eg fitted kids shoes but I suspect that the units will be empty themselves and the country will be forced to find a new hobby for the weekend that isn't shopping.
I think that the HS has been in trouble for a while. For example M&S (whose customers slew older) preferring to push people online or to click and collect.

I was in my local Costa which is by a Morrison's and they said that coffee via Uber Eats etc outweighs takeaway coffee by miles right now. I wonder if people will have their coffee delivered and socialise with their friends at home once the rules change?

I enjoy a browse around the shops as do many on here which is ironic as this place seems to have more people who are environmentally conscious than people I know irl. Our local shopping centre put out press releases boasting about being busier than Oxford Street over Xmas so I think that the appetite for buying stuff hasn't diminished despite unemployment rising and people on 80% of their previous wage.

There are lots of businesses rumoured to leave our local shopping centre (5 miles away) because they can't afford the higher rents imposed by the landlords

Plus rates.
Plus insurance.
Plus bills (utilities, refuse collection)

When I ran my DFs business 25 years ago, we had to find £10,000 a year before we took a penny from a customer. And we owned the property. If we had to rent that would have easily been £15,000. Which would mean £50/day every day before the doors opened for a 6 day week.