The recent pandemic has forever changed the way that we shop. More and more people are looking to buy their products online or visit stores to use their click-and-collect services. However, change was always coming, and the Pandemic has just accelerated the process. If you go down to the High Street today, you will see a range of boarded-up shops and no one willing to take them over. The departure of Woolworths, House of Fraser, and Debenhams, and those are just the once big players, is a massive cultural shift. It’s hard to have ever conceived of a time when walking through these retail empires that such stabilised names should go under. What has brought about this massive change in our purchase habits, and what is the future likely to hold? One thing is for sure; a Security Seal like those from https://acmeseals.co.uk is bound to be needed to help keep products safe and secure.
Many will point to the death of the High Street being the announcement of the national lockdown, but the high streets decline began well before this with the invention of the internet. Much like the silent movie stars of the 1920’s believing that “the talkies” were a fad, so did the retail giants. Others soon took advantage of Facebook, YouTube, Gumtree and now Shopify to sell their wares, bypassing the buyers of the giants completely. Suddenly a massive market was opened to them, and that reach could be global. Amazon, which started as a bookseller primarily, was soon to branch out into selling pretty much everything. The internet giant initially worked with retail partners and soon learnt what its customers wanted. Many of the retail giants, Toys R Us being one example, realised their mistake too late. They shared data and not gained from it by developing their online platform.
Considering the costs, it’s no wonder we’ve gone online. It’s generally cheaper, and we don’t need to drive, pay for parking, buy an overpriced coffee or cake, bump into people we don’t like or have to drag the kids around countless shops.
What does the future hold? One suggestion is that you won’t go into a shop at all. Instead, they will just be massive warehouses where they operate a click-and-collect operation. The High Street? It’s only option now seems to be to offer experiences and not retail.