THE HIGH STREET DECLINE Emily Hardaker

THE HIGH STREET DECLINE

With the growth of online shopping the high streets are in decline. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the rate of retail shops closing down especially small independent shops who have struggled with legislation forcing them to close for over a year. This legislation has pushed millions of customers to change their ways in how they shop moving them from high streets to online.

A decline in shoppers is having a huge impact on how the fashion industry is run, including the deadly competition from fast fashion brands such as Shein, higher costs due to a weaker pound effected by Brexit as well as demands for higher wages have contributed to the decline of the high street. Even though customers are increasingly using the internet to shop accounting for 20% total sales in the summer months of 2018 they also look for other experiences merged with their high street shopping adventure. Outlets such as York Designer outlet has achieved this by having a mix between fashion, food and fun, allowing their customers to have a full experience from the Ice Skating at Winter Wonderland all the way to buying a suit from Ralph Lauren. These experiences have kept the high street afloat as even though online shopping has allowed customers the ability to order anything, from a new pair of jeans to a brand-new sofa with a free delivery service, a true experience hasn’t been created.

However, have the shoppers just simply got bored of what the high street has to offer? With a limited number of stores available in comparison to the wide range online, this has resulted in the decline of the small-town high street with the loss of 48 shops, restaurants and other leisure and hospitality venues daily during the Covid period. Some of these closures included major stores including the entire Debenhams chain and several more John Lewis outlets, even though these stores where popular at times sales were falling for several years and the pandemic was the final blow. It is argued that these businesses have been left behind during the transition to online markets. Fashion retailers such as Asos have come largely dominate in the online market enjoying a take in of £2.42billion.

Numerous changes can be made to help save the high street, although there are countless opportunities for start-ups on the high streets due to the area being extremely attractive for entrepreneurs, the access to physical retail space at a reasonable price is hard to find and sustain as well as reassurance to prevent the high street from seeing any further losses. Furthermore, as the squeeze on physical space continuous to be a problem across the UK, many high streets such as York city centre where traffic can be stopped from up to an hour to reach the centre are just not worth the wait. A lack of affordable, close-proximity parking has made securing a spot equivalent to winning the lottery, if changes were made in the accessibility of the high street for shoppers the decline will slow down and perhaps increase due to the experience being worth the travel.