Is the High Street dead? It’s not only a question on many brands’ and retailers’ minds, but it was the focus of a recent panel in London hosted by Draper’s on which I was asked to participate. Without trying to be flip or provocative for provocation sake, my answer was, and is, “yes”. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.
To understand my argument, we need to start with what the High Street was and what it has come to represent. According to Wikipedia, the High Street refers to:
“the primary business street of towns or cities…it implies the focal point for business, especially shops and street stalls (if any) in town and city centers. As a generic shorthand, it may be used to denote more precise concepts such as the urban retail sector.”
The High Street used to be a physical destination—a place where a shopper could go to fulfill most, if not all, of their shopping needs and desires. But the modern definition of the High Street now mostly refers to the large department stores and multinational verticals that occupy what was referred to as the High Street. It is this evolved definition, the one dominated by wholesalers and fast fashion, that I most directly refer to when I say that the High Street is dead. I don’t know why brands and retailers find this declaration so shocking when it is us, brands and retailers, that are responsible for the demise of the High Street.
Let me explain why I place the blame on the very people who are bemoaning the disappearance of the High Street. Originally, retailers and brands looked to create a profitable relationship with consumers based on understanding the local shopper. Success was based on making shopping destination-worthy by building loyalty and by being a member of the community that contributed back. That was the joy of being a private enterprise. But as brands and retailers became public entities with boards and stockholders to appease, the notion of loyalty and community got shoved aside in favor of increased revenue.
The first step on the road to obsessive continued growth was to expand distribution at the cost of localization. Retailers and brands looked to drive penetration at the cost of satisfaction and to drive efficiency by offering as many of the same product in the highest numbers of places at once. Retailers and brands opened more doors on more high streets and shoved more inventory into current doors. Instead of curated product presentations, the notion of “pile it high and let it fly” in as many doors as possible came into practice. We commoditized our own product and made shopping less joyful, all at the same time. Shopping was no longer a destination but an errand.
The second step was the obvious next one. As inventory piled up and as pushing points of distribution became less effective or opportune, brands and retailers found that they had to rely on other means to grow dollar volume. With product becoming less special, the ability to command premium pricing became impossible. Commodity product had to be priced accordingly, if only based on the simple law of supply and demand. Product was now not only commoditized, it was devalued. Ubiquity became our guiding principle.
And finally, when penetration and promotion was pushed as far as they could be, the only way to keep delivering growth was to reduce expenses. At first expenses were cut along the fringes, with brands and retailers hoping that the customer wouldn’t notice the wear and tear on physical stores. But then the need to cut further led to a reduction in service. It was at this point, that the High Street was put on life support. Instead of shopping being about an emotional relationship and a journey of discovery, shopping had become purely transactional—get the customer in and out as quickly as possible (with as little sales help as possible), leaving behind as much of their wallet before they exited the store.
It’s no surprise that e-commerce became such an engine of growth. We taught the consumer that transactional shopping was the best kind of shopping. We taught them to forget experience and focus on convenience and price. Not surprisingly the customer migrated accordingly because ecommerce offered the most in terms of access to product and lowest prices. For when faced with commoditized and devalued product delivered with a lack of service and care, why would any consumer make a dedicated physical trip to the High Street when they could get the same experience at home?
The High Street as we once knew it has been dealt a death blow and, just like the Ladies’ Mile in New York City, it will cease to exist.
That doesn’t mean that brick and mortar retail is dead. It just means that the model that has come into being, where big box department stores and anonymous vertical cheap fashion dominate, has become outmoded. Yet, there is hope for bricks and mortar, but we will need to change our focus from protecting the high street to protecting retail. The hope for retailing will come from two specific shifts.
To start with, retailers need to reclaim the mentality and attitude of the independent retailers that still exist. For example, in Europe, where the notion of a traditional high street is less developed, the independent retailer is still alive and, in some instances, well.
Why?
The answer is simple and two-fold. Firstly, the local independent retailer has kept shopping about discovery and not just volume. The true independents (and even concept stores like Story and Snowfield’s) are based around the idea of constant exploration through continual change. They aren’t looking to comp sales in a singular product or department, they are looking at becoming a place where consumers can find inspiration and, through inspiration, find joy. We wrongly assume that is only the younger generations who value “experience”, but all human beings yearn for it. Millennials may more directly express a desire for it because they came of age in a time when the in-person experience was being devalued. But we all want to be surprised and delighted.
The second place where the independents have gotten it right is bringing service back into the equation. Independents are invested in staffing their stores with knowledgeable salesclerks who can talk about product and make recommendations based on what is right for the customer and not what is simply most profitable. In this way, bricks can be the most efficient way to obtain (and retain) new consumers and convert them to regular shoppers, whether that repeat purchase is done in the real or virtual world. Multiple studies have shown that it is far cheaper to acquire customers through a physical space rather than a digital one.
This is what brands like Warby Parker realized. They came to understand that e-commerce was a means to an end, but that nothing could actually replace human interaction and the opportunity to touch and feel. The brick and mortar Warby Parkers were even fashioned to look like an independent with all the services one would expect from a neighborhood optician. Warby Parker specifically avoided the self-service mentality of a Sunglass Hut. They personalized the experience, created stories around their glasses and made it easy for a consumer to walk out looking (and seeing) great.
The other change that could be the saving grace for brick and mortar retail is the customer themselves. We are starting to see a shift in behavior amongst Generation Z. While this generation of consumers (born between the mid-Nineties and the late Aughts) is the most digitally native of all generations, a recent study by Bloomberg showed an important change in the way this customer shops. Bloomberg reported that around 95% of Gen Z’s visited a physical shopping center in a three-month period in 2019 versus 75% of Millennials and 58% of Gen Xers. Moreover, a recent National Retail Federation survey found that physical stores with the preferred purchasing channels for consumers ages 13 to 21. If this trend holds, we are looking at a potential watershed moment in retail.
Why is this happening?
I think that most human behavior is cyclical and no different than the way hemlines rise and fall, the attitude towards bricks is changing. Perhaps it’s because the younger consumer is tired of constantly being pushed to do more in the time that they have (the number of hours that children are engaged in organized extracurriculars has skyrocketed in the last decade) or like most previous generations, the younger consumer is purposefully casting aside what their elders valued (just look at how uncool the younger generation sees Facebook as) in an attempt to cast the world in their own light. I am not sure that the answer to why the change is happening is important. But the change is important.
But this shift, while maybe saving the concepts of bricks, will come too late for the High Street. The younger shopper has never known the High Street to be a source of discovery and inspiration. They prefer the local artisan, or the retailer/brand who is supporting the causes that they support. Gen Z expects a great experience, they desire access to merchandise that is special and they require a new way to try and share products. At this point the dinosaurs of the High Street can simply not pivot fast enough while the online brands, who grew up with change as a foundational element to their business, can create the right kind of bricks experience.
For Ben Sherman, we are retooling our business to address all that. Having the opportunity to oversee the global business has been an exciting professional experience as my team and I have all learned to reframe the question from “why?” to “why not?” We have evaluated our product mix and ensured that we are creating product that meets a consumer need for discovery and not a distribution need for volume. We have looked at our assortment and designs from a way to is intended to inspire our consumer and not simply to replicate success. We have thought about vertical retail as a place that fosters community first, knowing that if a consumer feels welcomed, they will buy. And we have asked ourselves how we can support what our consumers feel passionate about—whether that’s sustainability or music or the move to gender inclusive products—not because we want to chase trends but because the Ben Sherman brand has always been about inclusive passion.
Our approach for Ben Sherman is very much borne out of the philosophy that Marquee Brands has for its portfolio of brands. We’ll ensure that Ben Sherman will have continued success by delivering relevant product and creating retail experiences that serve the needs and interest of our consumers, not by bending the consumers to our will. We’ll respect the founding message of the Ben Sherman brand on a macro level, while considering how to make that message appeal on a global level. And we’ll never trade on the loyalty our consumers have shown over five decades. Instead, we will look at how to deepen that loyalty and turn all of our consumers into brand ambassadors regardless of where they shop.
Protecting the High Street business for the sake of saving the High Street is a losing proposition. Brands and retailers need to let go of what used to be familiar and comfortable and challenge themselves with innovative evolution. There is no lack of opportunity for connecting with consumers and, with more than two thirds of apparel purchases still being done in the physical world, there is money to be had, relationships to be built and loyalty to be mined. However, there are two things that are certain. First, business won’t be done on the traditional High Street and the sooner we accept that the better. Second, every brand and every retailer must once again embrace the importance of building an emotional connection with consumers every time they walk through our doors and, especially, every time they make a purchase. The king is dead, long live the new king.
