Is our city shopping street still attractive?
Posted by John Blogg
Our associates and myself walked the city shopping streets of Europe recently. A disheartening experience , to say it mildly. Europe’s shopping streets and to a large degree the USA and its malls too, are rapidly becoming one great yawn.
Where are the retail entrepreneurs with guts? Where are the true retailers that are prepared to take a risk? How on earth have we allowed our shopping experience to become so uniform?
Clearly the "I do what you are doing but will try to do it better", has become the credo for executives in the worlds multiple retail store groups. Innovation and creativity are out, it seems!
Walking the streets of Europe (or the malls of the US) all fashion houses are now interchangeable – with a few exceptions- if you take away from the front all the brands no consumer would know who’s store they would be entering. Where are the innovators who dare to push some boundries?
Take any main shopping street in Europe:
- Fashion ( all looking alike )
- Perfumery ( all looking alike )
- Shoes ( all looking alike )
- Coffee shops (all looking alike )
- Telephone and mobile phone shops ( all looking alike )
Speciality shops... none! A market survey done recently gave a percentage of 1,5% of all retailshops as independent.
In a recent article in a leading newspaper in the Benelux a warning (again?) was sounded that the variety of shops was quickly diminishing in the European highstreet. The warning was voiced by a leading retail property developer Corio. How corny can you get? It are these developers that have created a level of rent that is no longer sustainable for independents and smaller start up – innovators .
Seems that the thiefs are complaining that the goods were left unattended and that it allowed them
to steal...
It is clear that we have entered a period of shopping street (ice age) boredom and it is therefore not surprising to notice the massive sales increases the webshops are achieving nowadays.
