While online retailers such as Amazon go from strength to strength, a damning new report in the UK has stated the high street is facing a crisis – in towns and cities, 1 in 7 high street locations lie empty.
Is the report justified? Are online retailers like Amazon responsible for this, and why? What can revitalise the high-street?
Is it that bad?
First off, referring to it as a ‘crisis’ is perhaps a little dramatic and mostly just a headline grabber. Even Amazon admits that it needs brick and mortar stores to drive sales for devices like it’s new Kindle Fire. Though many will be sold online, the majority of consumers will heading out to the shops to get a little hands-on time when deciding on a tablet purchase this Christmas – and that’s where Amazon needs to reel them in.
Though we don’t have the new Fire in the UK yet, the Kindle line has a strong presence even in supermarket retailers such as Tesco – alongside the iPad – while other tablet devices remain noticeably absent.
We also need to bear in mind that a large proportion of the population is still very far from what most of us would define as “tech savvy”, and many remain distrustful of online retailers in general. There is simply too large of a “digital divide” for the high street to be in that much trouble in the foreseeable future.
If my own purchasing habits can be considered a good indicator though, I can tell you now that I’ve
