UK shops
 

So today we have Poundworld in administration and House of Fraser closing down half its stores (administration in a couple of years then). It's amazing how these how school retailers are being killed off - probably by Amazon.

One thing I noticed on my last trip was the rise in the Drive Through Costa. Several new ones opening in my local area and the open ones are super busy with lines of cars. I'm quite surprised at how popular they are - looks like people are specifically driving to them.

Re: UK shops
 

Chester high street is now home to several Pound lands, betting and charity shops
We have big retail parks which are always packed. We have lots of tea shops but thankfully not many coffee places. Us Northerners are partial to a pot of tea and a cake. It is sad to see the demise of my high street and my Niece was distraught at The Disney Shop ( She calls it Disneyland) has gone as when i travelled home it was a day out for us!

I reckon WHS will be next

Re: UK shops
 

WH Smith deserve to go bust simply for firing me on boxing day, 1997.

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it was recently voted by Which the worse UK retailer

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Must be so difficult running an independent shop unless you're a) niche or b) a corner shop; even the smaller chains don't seem to last (apart from the likes of Greggs). At last there were about 8 charity shops on the two main shopping streets in Ilkley, and you can walk them both in about 4 minutes.

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Re: UK shops
 

Lots of fond memories from the early- mid 90s of spending time at WH Smith.

Re: UK shops
 

The bastards.

I like Smiths, it's always a stop at Heathrow for me, ham and cheese sarnie and a big bag of skips......ending in me moaning that I don't want a ****ing Telegraph to get a 'free' Buxton.

Re: UK shops
 

It was unforgivable, especially as I was the only one of the Christmas temps who was able to work out correct change and do refunds in my head.

Until recently, the landside WH Smiths at B'ham used to sell porn mags (but not the airside). Often used to pick up a mag featuring hairy wives.

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Why?

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old skool fella. It's not the same on the phone.

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Not arrived in the UK yet but there are 'clothing department Stores' in the US where you order on-line, the goods are delivered to the store where you can try them on and then only take what you like, store has a very small area for sales so has a much smaller rental cost.

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Smart money is converting High Street to residential with a handful of coffee shops and cafes and one or two boutiques. People will move there because it's "walkable". If I were a developer with big pockets I'd move quickly and snap up high street property while they're cheap enough.

Logistics and shopping preferences aren't going back to what they were. Smaller shops, even department stores, are going the way of the dodo bird.

Exception are upmarket towns with frou frou butchers and cheesemongers and Australian style coffee shops and high disposable incomes.

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My 'why' related to the content rather than the medium, but on reconsideration I'll take this answer instead.

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Spot on - and this has really the basis for gentrification that's been going on. Screws the poor though by rising local property prices and they get grumpy as they like to pick through sales in rubbish shops and generally wouldn't waste their days in poncy coffee shops. The issue in somewhere like the UK will be getting planning permission for the change in use from retail (and employer) to expensive residential.

Retail is changing in a big way - the reality is that the high street is dead and out of town retail parks with cheap buildings and rents (so not malls) is probably where it's at for those able to survive.

I still don't understand all the drive through costas. Last thing I want is my almond milk flat white served in my lap.

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I can work out the cost of the drinks and all the plates at Yo Sushi in my head quicker than they can do it with a calculator. It's ****ing embarrassing how reliant people are on things, I love doing simple maths, how else do you work out what your £10 each way be gets at 1/4 odds of a 14/1 shot when it wins?

Sounds lovely. Where do I head?

I disagree, malls in town centres are huge attractions.
Yes the 'out of town retail park' is still going to be greatly visited but it's your furniture village, sainsburys and argos who will be based there.
'High Streets' aren't disappearing, they're just gathering indoors in a mall, to make it easier for the consumer. It's nothing really to cry about, instead of getting wet and miserable, you're just miserable.

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The biggest problem I see is that is a store like House of Fraser closes down it leaves a huge building empty, there is unlikely to be any company will or able to take it on as a single store, so would have to be changed to a retil area wil numbers of smaller shops, but that means a lot of cost to the owners, which will have to be passed onto the small shops making it too expensive for them to take on, a catch 22 situation. There are many of this type of store in UK towns that have been empty for years.

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Much of the former office spaces in Edinburgh's New Town has been converted back into residential uses as firms flocked to new purpose built buildings on the outskirts of the city because of the IT requirements and the difficulties of upgrading listed 18th century buildings to meet modern IT needs. Just pointing this out as changes in how we work has affected our building needs and how we adapted to it. Malls themselves reflect an increasing preference to go to malls for shopping, both for convenience to customers and retailers, over the older High Streets, but judging from the American mall experience, even the new malls themselves will hit their sell-by date soon enough.

Given the critical housing shortage in the UK it makes sense to convert these large high street buildings to residential uses, pending sizeable shifts in local planning attitudes, as Millhouse pointed out. I'm sure some type of High Street will remain, but on a much smaller scale and for very specific purposes, mainly dining. Consider the new shopping venues in Dubai like La Mer and Box Park, which are mostly food & beverage destination areas. People still want to go "out" and socialise at destination places, but physical consumption is now shifting towards mostly F&B as we increasingly rely on online for goods and even services. The latest reincarnation of High Street will need to be leisure based.

Scamp, a good example of an upmarket High Street is Windsor. It's practically a theme park now. The interesting reality of the upmarket high streets is that they still walk a very thin line between profit and affordability, these shops have low profit margins despite high prices, but if they become too much a victim of their success, they risk seeing rents increase beyond what they can afford. Popular areas attract chains, which in turn makes them less attractive to some consumers, and a vicious cycle begins. Still, a number of upmarket villages and suburbs have managed to walk that fine line for quite some time now. The battle of High Streets is a fascinating exposure of the tug of war between human desires and human greed. Unfortunately, greed almost always wins out at the end of the day.

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Turn them into flats, that only the older generations can afford, rent them to younger people who've given up hope of affording a deposit. Make the space beneath them into bars / cafes / tesco express type places to serve the people upstairs.

Malls are now having to have attractions (ski slopes, kidzania etc) to make them more 'attractive' and to keep people for longer. But I can't see them dying or slowing anytime soon, that's globally.

Windsor - not been in years.

I go to the Mother's in Salisbury and there's a tiny little outdoor shopping arcade / mall and then a series of streets leading around and to / from the market square. On that, there's a Debenhams and that's about as glam as it gets. Very traditional city centre in that respect and no big mall unless you drive 20-30miles to West Quay in Southampton. Heading into the place is just depressing. Some of the shops are fantastic little / local / small chain style, some are the big chain monsters you need / want. It's just when it's cold and wet at Christmas, I'd much rather be in a mall. When it's summer it's lovely.

Luckily, the city centre is probably about the size of Dubai Mall so it's not that hard to get around.