Are British high streets on the decline?
You may have heard about the death of the high street amid massive chain closures and branch scale backs, maybe even witnessed it in your own local area. But bosses at department store John Lewis say the reports are overstated - as they've seen online sales drop off and in-person sales increase over the last few months.
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00:00 The high street's been dead for years, in Glasgow anyway.
00:05 I mean, you go to the high street and there's hardly any shops open.
00:08 And the more you look about even Circuit Hall Street and Gale Street, there's more and more shops closing.
00:13 We're battling with landlords that want to increase rents and obviously have an income from obtaining properties.
00:23 So it kind of makes it difficult for small businesses to flourish because it's never kind of returned back into making those businesses better than what they could be.
00:34 So it goes on prices, unfortunately. John Lewis has a good record.
00:42 People of Bristol have supported them, but other shops are coming in now and taking that away from them.
00:50 And that's about it, I think.
00:53 I think in the smaller towns, definitely. I think in larger cities, obviously, now they're booming, which is great.
01:00 But in smaller local communities, I think there's been a definite kind of negative impact on them.
01:06 There was a point in time where many people considered online shopping to be the future of retail,
01:12 especially when pandemic restrictions shut down brick and mortar stores for a while.
01:16 During the peak of Covid, department store John Lewis saw their online sales reach highs of 81 per cent.
01:22 But now this has reduced back down to 57 per cent of their overall sales, with in-store sales also up 8 per cent on 2022.
01:30 But what does it mean for our high streets and how do you tend to do your shopping?
01:35 So it might be true that they're dying. I probably disagree with John Lewis in that regard.
01:39 I look in Wolverhampton, for example, if I run around the city, I just see McDonald's, Poundland just everywhere.
01:46 It's not particularly pleasant. So therefore, I feel like businesses probably have to adapt somehow.
01:52 I'm not sure what way, but I'm seeing brick and mortar stores becoming less and less popular and monopolies taking over in that regard, unfortunately.
02:00 But that might be the reality we're dealing with now.
02:03 The high street, as we know it, has changed. Life has changed. The whole life has changed as we know it.
02:09 When I grew up, you know, you pop to a shop, you get what you want, you go home.
02:14 Now you just go on Amazon, click, click, click. Yeah, it's there.
02:17 You know, it's not going to get any better, in my opinion anyway, because it's easy to shop online.
02:26 I think in Manchester, I think in city centres, it's definitely not dying, to be honest with you.
02:31 People do still enjoy going out and physically going into stores.
02:35 Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy going into stores, but also you see the benefit of buying stuff online.
02:40 It's quick, it's easy. Obviously, you still have to deliver stuff, but just by being able to sit in bed and click and get a jumper sent in the next day.
02:49 It's a real shame. Local ones and the town, even. I see these shops closing down.
02:56 And again, it's food shops all the time. I know I have a large student community here, which keeps this town alive.