subject: UK High Streets in sad decline [print this page] There was a time when a shopping trip entailed little more than walking down the high street of your home town and browsing in your favourite shop.
Unfortunately, a lot of high streets are now mere shadows of their former selves as shoppers shun the town centre in favour of retail parks.
This has created a vicious circle from which there seems little chance of escape as less shoppers leads to stores closing down their town centre outlets, which in turn leads to less shoppers visiting the town centre.
This sad situation also affects other sectors such as pubs and restaurants with less passing trade to rely on.
As if this was not bad enough, the whole of the retail sector has seen a slump in sales due to the recession with consumers less likely to spend money on anything but the essentials.
It is not the recession, however, that is the high streets biggest long term threat -that dubious honour belongs to online shopping.
It seems that anything you can buy in your local town centre is now available online, often at a cheaper price. Even your groceries can now be ordered from within the comfort of your own home,either with cheap or sometimes free delivery.
The question is, how can shops fight back against the internet ?
Truth is they probably cannot, especially in area such as flights and holidays where there is not a physical product to be viewed instore.
Where there is a physical product, ie electrical goods, what is to stop a shopper picking out an item they like instore, but then going home and ordering it on the internet?
There will alway be a certain kind of shopper who will prefer the hands-on, personal approach of a local shop, but on the whole, if retailers want to survive, let alone thrive,they will have to do their upmost to capture their share of the evergrowing online market.
