High Streets are losing their sheen in UK

In this article, we will see what importance these High street markets had in British Society in the past and what value it carries in modern times. As per the history of the UK, it is quite evident that High Streets are the lifeline of local communities and businesses. These high streets are well embedded into British society and they laid a strong foundation for many retail giants, banks, and Services which are ruling and flourishing in the UK market currently.

Even today many retail chains of stores are having a prominent presence in High street markets across the UK to reach their loyal customers and new ones. High street markets are structurally intertwined the organized and unorganized retail formats and they serve customers of all levels like supermarkets, off-license stores, Mc Donald, KFC, Subway, Greggs, Wilko, Savers, Iceland, Asian Supermarket stores, African stores, European Specialty stores, Banks, Poundland, Boots, Superdrug etc.

As observed, we have seen a study decline in footfalls across the high streets across the UK because there is a huge disparity in operations patterns in Organised retail formats and un-organised retail formats in High street markets. For example, Most of the Organised Retail chains stores like Savers, Iceland, JD Sports, Poundland and many more they close the stores much early around 05.00 or 05.30 pm every day when compared to the other stores that are operated by owners who operate at late hours. When customers want to visit the High street in the evening with their family they can only find the dark and deserted street with almost all stores closed and they end up buying the required groceries or household items from the individual stores that can offer only a fewer range of items and they move to online e-commerce.

Over a period of time, we have seen more and more retail chains collapsing into administration due to huge losses and dropping businesses and few of them are moving out of high streets to new stand alone formats in suburban areas. Most of the big Giants are falling into a myth that the High Street is an old and traditional way of doing business and they feel moving away from it will give a better boost to their brand image with stand alone stores in different locations and shifting focus to online more.

As a business entity irrespective of its size it should be flexible enough to adopt change without losing its core. Exploring new avenues is always welcomed but it doesn’t mean we will push away the base where our roots are from, one should always remember Trees grow big and bigger because the strength lies in their roots. If Government takes the initiative along with Business communities to come forward with constructive measures to rebuild customer confidence in local markets it will not only help the local communities but also bring better mileage to the overall economy of the country.

Every business in High Street should adopt uniform operating hours which will bring a huge change in the entire business in that particular market and it will help every player in that market to leverage their cost Vs revenue. Even though Bigger brands will have an edge over the competition due to their brand image but small players also will benefit from this because of the overall increase in footfall.