Ecommerce didn’t kill the high street – retailers did

The British high street is dead. All the big name shops have vanished, making way for a mix of charity, discount and coffee shops.

Each of these is next to closed-up premises, equipped with graffiti and homeless people sleeping rough outside. We all know it. We all see it.

And yet, on the rare occasion I scroll Zuckerberg’s ‘Book of Faces’, I’m met with a swathe of old photos showing the glory days of the high street.

People share their memories of the high street as if it were a once trusty dog who had long since passed. There’s love, there’s longing, and there are a lot of memories.

And there’s always a comment or two: “The high street died because people now shop online.”

Except that’s not quite true. Retailers killed the high street. It’s up to them to save it.

The Great Recession was really the start of the Great Deception

The decline of the UK high street since the 2008 banking crash is alarming. Blame it on austerity, Brexit or political incompetence. Each could win a prize in that competition.

However, the reality can be boiled down to a simple equation. The average working person has less disposable income to spend which, in turn, causes two things to happen:

1. We have less money to spend
2. We become more ‘choosey’ about where we spend our money.

So, you’d think with that in mind, shops, restaurants, and even town centres would up their game, reduce prices, and try to attract consumers to their premises.

Summer discounting sees retail prices fall for first time in three yearsBut no. They did the opposite. They chose the route of mediocre goods and services at high prices. From ‘shrink’ and ‘greedflation’ to poor service and uninspiring layouts, retailers and councils have truly taken the mick out of consumers for the last 16 years.

Leaving people to do the only thing they could: vote with their feet.

Shops and restaurant chains have gone bankrupt, and yet we keep seeing them blame the same thing: ecommerce.

From delivery apps to online shopping, almost all those responsible blame the internet for their demise while neglecting the part they played in it.

They added friction to everything

For those Rory Sutherland fans out there, I think you’ll appreciate this. For years, I went shopping in my local town for razors.

It was a simple excuse to skip household tasks and go to town on a Saturday. The plan was simple: get some lunch and buy some razors (and other bits and bobs).

My retailer of choice was the now-deceased high street giant Wilko. Except there was a huge problem. If I wanted to buy a razor, I’d need to hire the A-Team to break into the anti-theft devices installed to stop them from coming off the shelves.

That would be a damn sight easier, though, than trying to find the elusive shopping staff that had been reduced in numbers thanks to those horrific automated checkouts.

This is pretty much the town centres of the UK.

You can’t buy anything because most products are locked down with security locks, or there are no staff to answer questions or unlock the goods. And then there’s the lunch options.

If you head to a big brand, you’ll be greeted with overpriced food, prepared by overworked chefs and service staff. Pardon the pun, but it’s a recipe for disaster.

Add in expensive car parking and you have a plethora of reasons not to visit the town centres. But is it all bad news?

Why nail bars could save the high street

My local town centre is thriving with two core businesses: barbershops and nail salons.

I expect this pattern to be across the UK, and there is a good reason, our population is increasing. Or, in simple terms, we have more heads that need cutting and nails that need painting. The simplicity of these business models is fascinating.

You can’t get what they sell online, and people will travel to town centres to be served.

You might think this is relatively obvious – and it is. But it also flies in the face of those who blame the digital sector for the demise of the high street. People will travel to town centres if they have something they need and want.

But if that need can be filled by something ‘good enough’ that you can enjoy in the comfort of your own home, you’ll likely default to the online purchase option. And this is the new default for all of us.

We are online-first consumers, and that’s the challenge for retailers to solve.

Big retailers will always be a part of the high street, but if they’re going to survive in an economy of lower wages and low growth, they will have to buck up their ideas.

The new rule of thumb is simple. If customers can get what you offer on the internet, then you’ve got to up your game on the aspects the internet can’t provide. These are the things we all crave – human connection. To be seen. To be understood. To be helped.

McDonald’s experiments with retail formats in £1bn rolloutThis, though, means an investment in people, in the experience and in your customers. The problem with this, however, is that it’s not “good business” on paper. Staff cost money and investing in customer experience will cost money too. This doesn’t look good on a spreadsheet when calculating profits.

However, this is entirely the wrong way to view this.

Physical shops become part of a brand’s overall shopping experience and must be seen as physical extensions of the brand rather than profit-and-loss centres. For example, the clothing retailer Next allows people to have free next-day delivery to its stores, uniquely merging ecommerce and physical shopping.

How, then, does a store become more than just a shop and instead be part of an experience that people want to have?

Luckily, we don’t have to imagine, someone has done it already.

The Pink Palace

Earlier this year, my daughter and wife dragged me to an industrial estate in Stockport, an hour’s drive from my home.

What greeted me was a beauty brand warehouse tuned into what I would describe as a Willy Wonka-esque beauty experience for teenagers. And this store was packed full of people eating, buying and taking photos. Its name? The PLouise Makeup Academy.

I say academy, it’s more like a warehouse turned into a shop and restaurant at the same time. And the kids love it.

To grasp the scale of this, all the online retailer – a huge viral hit on TikTok – has done is convert part of their warehouse into a shop, use their strong branding and create an experience for shoppers.

My argument here is that if an online retailer can turn its warehouse into multi-functional premises that serves numerous consumer needs and attract teenagers to a northern industrial estate en masse – then retailers can certainly up their games in our local towns.

I’m not saying we should ‘Disneyfy’ entire town centres. But we live in an era when a baked potato seller in Tamworth can attract a flood of people to the town because he makes excellent videos on TikTok. And chip shop workers can become viral sensations overnight.

The high street might be dead, but it’s being revived slowly by the service sector. And if brands want to capitalise on this then they need to take a drink gulp of Wonka juice and start using some pure imagination.

To hammer home my point. Remember Toys ‘R’ Us? By the end of its lifespan, a once-thriving empire where children wanted to come was turned into a lifeless, soulless warehouse shopping experience.

And retailers have done much the same to their town centre shops.

My message to retail brands is a little like my school report card – must try harder.