To think this is why the high street is failing?

[MiamiWindMachine]

I’m off on holiday in a couple of days, so thought I’d go up to the big shopping centre for a couple of last minute things.

In the massive H&M, all the tills bar one had been converted to self-service. The ones on the floor I was on were ALL closed. I went down to the lower floor and there was a huge queue, because no one could work out the machines. There was a step to remove security tags, and people couldn’t work out whether this was only for those plastic tags or if there was some flag on the barcodes for lower value items. Someone else was trying to process a return via these tills. When a member of staff eventually appeared, she confirmed returns could only be processed at a manned till. The customer pointed out that there were no manned tills. The staff member had no idea who to ask about it, then disappeared to find someone, so the queue was getting even longer.

I was on the way out about 15 minutes before closing time and went past M&S. I thought “I wonder if the Bureau de Change is still open” and went to check. The woman saw me approach and had a pained look on her face, saying “Arrgghh, I’ve just cashed uuuppp!” I was a bit taken aback, but said “Oh well, never mind. What time do you close, for future reference?” She then reluctantly admitted that she was supposed to be open until 8, but said “But I do start cashing up at around 7.30”. I was about to ask why when she started saying, “It’s fine; I’ll do it, I’ll do it”, like she was doing me a massive favour. I tried to pay on Revolut and she said “We can’t take those cards!”, as if it was somehow obvious. I asked about Apple Pay and she said, “No, it has to be a proper bank card or credit card”. I therefore went to pay with my credit card and she said, “You do know we have to charge a fee for these, don’t you?” I said I didn’t have a choice given she’d rejected two other payment methods.

I then went down to foods to grab a ready meal and some wine. I went to a manned till as I had alcohol and the girl said, “Oh, could you go to the self-service? It’s just that I’m closing this one”. I asked about the alcohol and she said, “I can approve that from here; it’s just that it’s easier for me”.

I feel like we’re constantly told in the media “Use it or lose it” re: the high street; how sad it would be if we lost the personal touch. From what I could see yesterday, one store has done everything possible to eliminate personal interaction, while in the other, the staff are more bothered about their convenience than the customers’. Is it any wonder that people would rather click a couple of buttons to get something delivered?

They still need to buy food and clothes.

When I worked in shops, if I were on close I was contracted until 30mins after the doors closed. This was so we could do things exactly like the cashing up, and any last tidy up bits.

So actually, she probably wasn't due to leave at 8pm on the dot.

And they do it online........

I areas in areas where there is the demand. Where I live we have lots of these apartments. The demand is for houses with car parking.

I hate ordering clothes online. Most places now charge for deliveries and returns. So you order 4 things in 2 sizes, pay delivery charge, and find out the fabric is cheap, the garment is badly made, or even though you have 2 sizes none fit properly. And then pay return charge.
I want to go into a shop. And there is no way I want to buy different shoes online. This is why I keep ordering the same pair of shoes online. Because the bloody shop never has my size, and is not an unusual size.
I swear I would buy way more clothes if I could actually shop for them in my size.

This isn't why the high street is failing, it's a result of the high Street failing.
Online shopping,out of town shopping centres, high rents, rates and utilities , high wage costs and lack of town centre parking is why the high street is failing. It's been that way since the birth of online shopping, just as was predicted at the time.
I remember shopkeepers in Sheffield complain about what was going to happen when meadowhall was being built.

This happened to my daughter with over £100 worth of shopping and a fractious toddler in tow. She stood there while every single item was checked.

I'm one of the ignorant people who doesn't like self checkouts. I wouldn't mind if the bloody things worked half the time. Yesterday, "Unexpected item in bagging area" - it was a bag. When the assistant came over she said "Oh your bag must be too light and it hasn't registered!

As for a PP doing their whole weekly shop by self serve - I can think of nothing worse. Our Tesco has self serve tills but you only see people with small baskets there.

It's not the card payments, but the need for a bricks and mortar bank to transfer money, arrange direct debits etc, pay bills. Or deal with other problems. The nearest is 15 miles away.
Neither of my patents 70 and 80s will bank online, Dad is incapable and Mum is terrified of scams and not knowing what is genuine online. Neither have had jobs using technology.
My mum uses cards happily.
I can't believe some people are so ignorant in believing that they're alright jack, sod anyone else.
A lady I work with only has a feature phone, she doesn't use computers or anything like that, she probably has a mild learning disability, but has always managed until now. Again she is struggling with online systems.

In my town all the new building is student accommodation in the centre. Every week it seems our local rag is reporting planning permission being granted for yet more. I read once that there's some kind of planning loophole that gets quicker permission for student accommodation, but that after a few years it can be changed to private rental if demand for student accommodation leaves them empty, not that I'm aware of that happening as the local Uni seems to be expanding at a huge rate, especially with overseas students. To be fair it is rated as a good Uni.

Previously students would share 4 or 5 bed houses in the "burbs" which meant families were squeezed out. Now there is luxury student accommodation available, those houses are rented out as shares or HMOs at pretty high rates. Makes sound financial sense for landlords, but has decimated local communities.

Some companies are now restricting customers who return too much, especially buying multople sizes in the same outfit. So you are damned either way. But I find it difficult to know if something will fit, I'm above average height and sizing is so inconsistent. If they put actual measurements online it would help.
And shoes - not happening for me online.

@MorvernBlack I have read that some places are restricting customers who return too much. I think I will just end up buying less and less clothing.

There is no negotiating. In the 10 years that I was in retail management up to 2016, all my shops staff hours were halved. Head office would not be moved, but they weren't the ones who had to deal with the complaints from customers.
The lower the hours got, the worse the service we could offer to our customers, the less customers we got, profits dropped so hours were cut again...

I hate online clothes shopping - having to wait in for parcels to arrive, then returning most of the stuff because it doesn't fit, is shit quality or just doesn't suit me.
If this is the future of retail then I'll be stuck with the same clothes I've got.

@RaraRachael I have started reordering a second top or pair of trousers when I find something I really like. I genuinely think in a few years time I will only be buying underwear.

Retail shopping has went way down, but companies never look at why people are buying less.

@Nadeed that sounds like a great idea!

Oh, and the bandying about of the term Luddite - actually they weren't opposed to progress in general, they were fighting for the right to make a living because industrialisation was putting people out of work and there was feck all help for them to adjust, it being the good old days of work or starve.

Ultimately if the job market becomes smaller and smaller as the human input isn't needed, what are we going to do to prevent mass homelessness and unemployment? If everyone pretty much retains in tech, and only a few manual roles exist, what happens? I smell UBI and population reduction by stealth.

You’re wrong. It’s not about what time I want the service to run until - 8pm is the closure time advertised by M&S. The assistant herself told me that. I wasn’t asking for anything they hadn’t offered to provide.

I haven't been to a normal high street chain shop in over 20 years, the moment the customer service failed I went elsewhere. I will happily pay the earth for customer service. If I go into curry's I don't want to know more than the so called sales assistant. So I don't go there now. I go to the small shops (which are usually part of euronics franchise) because they care about the customer. Normally it's a few quid in it, and I happily pay. There are many small shops which closed because of the high street. Now I believe we are entering a reverse cycle. High street rent is astronomical, little small shops can sell at the same price because their overheads are less.
The oment shops think they ca do without customer service, why would I go to them.
Most things I can buy either direct from the manufacturer or cheaper over the internet. If there is no value being added by the chains, I don't see why I should use them.
When I worked (school holidays / student part time work) in retail, I would literally walk out at the end of my shift. If tills weren't cashed up because they paid us until the time the store closed, then tough. I was told it was expected that I turn up half an hour before my shift starts. I just pointed them to their contract with me, and said, Nope I'm not. You can always decide to dismiss me for working to my contract on minimum wage. Luckily I then worked for RichardSounds in my final year in Reading. Fantastic respect to the employees (part and full time) they had the concept of give and take and discounts for all staff. I happily stayed late and sometimes opened up for them because they respected their employees.

The issues of high streets are a lot more complex than most people on this thread are discussing. As a few posters have pointed out - a lot of the things we're seeing now are symptoms of the bigger changes but the problem is that our high streets haven't adapted for this sufficiently.

So online has lots of advantages - variety and choice being a key one, as well as convenience. This means that in store shopping needs to meet a very specific purpose. I suspect this is partly why we're seeing new shopping districts prioritising higher end or specialist retail - look at Battersea Power Station for example.

Town centres also haven't figured out the shift so rents are still exorbitant, often based on high levels of footfall and physically large stores. But again, that's simply not practical. Let's take me shopping for DS 13 - most of what he wears is cheap and cheerful t-shirts and trackies, which we can buy online anywhere. When there's a bit more cash on offer, he likes a Nike t-shirt or similar. Most of this I can do online as well. The things we do in person are, for example, when for his birthday he wants a "proper" Nike trackie - those are harder to assess and check for sizing online, and they're expensive. So we go into our locak JD Sport or similar. I don't think it's a co-incidence that these stores have loads of shoes, loads of trackies and a fair number of t-shirts, but not the variety that they offer online - the stuff people are happy to buy online, stay online. This allows the in-person store to be smaller and more compact, with lower rents. Our local shopping mall has two massive empty spaces - I suspect because they can't find anyone to replace the department store and the large H&M that used to use those spaces. If they split it into multiple spaces, perhaps they'd have more luck?

Then food. Again, many of us do our big shops online. So why do we use in-person stores? For some it's because they don't like online - often older or with some mobility issues or because it's not practical for them with their lifestyles. These people are therefore more likely to find doing their shopping at a big superstore, outside of town, a bit easier - parking in disabled spaces near to the door, plenty of choice, options for mobility etc. For others, instore is because they have specific needs and preferences in terms of food types/quality and for others it's about speed - even Amazon Fresh can't always deliver on the day. I don't think it's surprising therefore that the smaller supermarkets are often popular and even less so that we're seeing a proliferation of Waitrose and M&S in these sort of situations because people ewant to whip in and grab some nibbles and a pizza vs going in to bulk buy Persil - almost every one of our local garages now has either a mini Waitrose or a mini M&S. A few have a Tesco or a generic brand, but it's fewer and fewer all the time because it's the Waitrose and M&S that people want when they're doing mini-shops.

Then there's transport. As people have said - we don't live in our town centres, and too often public transport isn't reliable or sufficient but parking is expensive. And then once these shoppers do arrive, it's often spread out and/or congested and unpleasant to navigate. Again, town centres have to accept that things are changing - if people ARE coming into town, they want it to be a useful and pleasant experience. Towns have to get this right if they want to see changes.

So, in brief, my point is that the way we want to use high streets is changing and the shops/high streets have to change with us, and that's simply not happening fast enough.

There's a village high street where our children do their extra curricular activities that is absolutely BOOMING. They've completely nailed so many of these issues. All the stores are physically small which I assume keeps rents down. They have a mix of independent and chains providing things that people WANT to buy in person and want to browse in OR that are more convenient in a quick in-person trip. A huge variety of cafes and restaurants so everyone is catered to. The high street itself is easy to navigate with wide pavements and few roads to cross, and where you do need to cross, there are plenty of options. There is a butcher and a greengrocer which are expensive, but they can get away with it because foot traffic is huge so they get a lot of people who are willing to pay, and the ones that aren't, go to one of the supermarkets (that are not overwhelmingly large). Parking is accessible and not over the top expensive. Its becoming so popular that more and more I hear of people driving there from neighbouring villages and not just because they're in the area for some other purpose or live locally. The locals are starting to complain!

OP I completely share your frustration. Since the the dark days of covid, customer service has gone out of the window, to be replaced by everything being for the convenience of the shopkeepers. This might take the form of either self-scan tills or workers cashing up way before closing time, or being treated rudely by shop staff who act like they don't want to be at work.
I'm so fed up with the state of high street shopping now that, apart from groceries, I buy almost everything else online.
The customer is no longer King (or Queen) 😞

Just to add to my essay above, I think urban planners these days really need to be thinking much more holistically. I suspect they are catching up and probably newer training course are more aware of this. eg how to integrate technology to make things work better and more effectively. Using AI to hlep figure out better pricing for landlords and town centre rents - I can easily see this becoming a more dynamic process. More research by towns on what is needed locally and how to improve the infrastructure accordingly - eg I think there's a lot of people who want to be abe to drive, but towns have to get smarter about avoiding congestion so that people can enjoy the town centre without all the cars. Attracting the kind of stores that also attract footfall.

Part of the problem is that many of these changes are massive and require extensive investment - changing road systems for example.

Nadeed · Today 16:49
But with scanners you can get stopped while a staff member takes ages to check your whole shop.

This has never happened to me. Usually if they check you, they sample a small number of items in your shop. You only have to have the whole shop rescanned if you have not scanned everything you've taken.

I disagree about mini Waitroses etc. They have replaced the older style independent corner shops. And new supermarkets are opening in my City. None have closed, not one. I suspect a lot of people do what I do. Order bulky items online that I really do not need to check the quality of e.g. toilet paper, drinks. And get meat and fresh fruit and veg in person.

Lots of people on MN say they had not taken anything and still got the whole lot rescanned.
I don't even want to get stopped for a sample number of items. If I did self scanning I want to leave when I have paid. Not going through the checkouts really does not save that much time if you go to a supermarket that has enough cashiers.