High Street Malaise

This is about the fourth Saturday in a row I have gone into the West End of London and come back empty-handed. High Street shopping is seriously starting to loose its appeal for me, which is quite surprising as I really rather used to enjoy shopping. Online shopping is in danger of totally overshadowing its traditional counterpart.

That said, there are at least three areas where High Street Shopping has the advantage:

• Sampling - the ability to experience and touch the product/s first-hand, check quality of materials, finish etc.
• Browsing - flipping through record or clothing racks can be an enjoyable experience - as long as you find something
• Immediacy - you buy, it’s yours immediately, with no hanging about, well ... bar the queueing of course

Unfortunately, High Street shopping also has the following downsides:

• Availability - you don’t know whether the store will have what you want in stock - especially when it comes to sizing
• Travel - you have to travel to the High Street, perhaps find a parking space, park up etc.
• Queuing - how many people ahead of your at the till?
• Portage - you will soon be weighed down by your several carrier bags of shopping
• Range - it’s rare that a traditional store has a larger stock than its online equivalent
• Price - it’s nearly always cheaper online
• Security - most people are nervous about online fraud, but you’re just as likely to be a victim of fraud when out and about, and there is an added risk of pick-pocketing and misadventure - such as misplacing or leaving behind credit cards, keys, wallet, shades etc.

These last 4 weekends I have gone into town, come back home empty-handed and gone directly online to make my purchases - the obvious downside of that experience is the delivery part. In fact I’m currently awaiting delivery of a CD from CD Wow! - which is running approximately 2 weeks overdue - possibly lost in the mail. It is almost always the delivery part which makes me nervous, and which has let me down before. When you buy an individual CD, it’s not really worth adding special delivery to get parcel tracking and extra peace of mind. Possibly this is the way that all Internet deliveries have to go (tracking inclusive), as the post office is nowhere near as reliable as it used to be, and it’s not unusal these days that pakages go missing.

The enormous advantage of the Internet is the ease of discovery, the ability to see if said item is in stock, and move onto another retailer if such is not the case - with about 5-10 seconds transit time. When shopping in town, ’availability’ becomes a real issue - there are relatively few stores you can check on stock online before you set off into town. For most stores, there is no correlation between High Street stores and online retail - they might have stock online, but not in store and vice versa. A couple of the stores in the West End you can check in advance are specialist record store Phonica, and Comics and Fantasty Megastore - Forbidden Planet - if I’m going into town I will always do a quick check in advance so I won’t be disappointed when I arrive in person.

Customer service in stores is also slipping - I was after a particular Banana Republic jacket back in the spring, and had noted the previous week that my size was out of stock at the Regent Street branch. I happened to come across the Covent Garden branch the following weekend and popped in to make an enquiry; the store was kitted out for midgets, as there was only ’S’ small on the racks - I asked a shop attendant for help, and said person disappeared off to the store room to look. 20 minutes later I was still waiting, another assisstant then informed my that the assisstant helping me was now on lunch break - she then spent another 20 minutes trying to find stock information and cross-check with Regent Street, but was unable to get through. I’ve had the same issue with several stores of late - their systems just aren’t up to the task of the modern customer-focused retail experience.

Now that HMV has almost totally killed off its Vinyl selection, and remodels the layout of the store every couple of weeks, so you struggle to find where anything is, I don’t believe I have had a fully satisfactory retail experience in HMV for a while. This is a shame really, as the Oxford Circus branch of HMV is one of the greatest music, video, games and general entertainment stores in the world - all the displays and display areas are fantastic - with rack after rack of charts, new releases, special offers, staff picks, recommendations, award winners, bands playing live in London etc. etc. - the amount of merchandising in the store is truly amazing, and all online retailers could learn a lot from this. HMV’s sister company Waterstones on Piccadilly is another ’Destination Store’ with rack after rack of contextual highlights and personal selections.

If you think about the ’Destination Stores’ in London, the top tier includes the Super Department Stores - Selfridges, Harrods, Harvey Nicks, Liberty’s and newish shopping mall - Westfield. In the second tier you have the various mass market retail flagship stores - HMV, Waterstones, Forbidden Planet, Apple, Top Shop, Nike Town etc; then at the 3rd tier you have the more specialist boutiques like Phonica and of course Bond Street, Carnaby Street etc.

The advantage of going into town is instant satisfaction (relatively), but running around the town centre actively looking for something can take several hours of legwork and in-store research. A trip into town is usually at least a 1 hour affair, most likely 2-3 hours. If you come home away empty-handed after that, you might feel glad about the exercise, but ultimately very disappointed by the experience. More often than not, something I am introduced to online is unavailable in a local store for some strange reason - I’ve been let down by nearly every store on the High Street, including Boots, and all the ones I have mentioned above. The only stores I find consistently satisfying are Forbidden Planet and Phonica - who have their online stores synced with their shop inventory - so you know what’s in stock before you set off - if it’s out of stock I already know this, and am less likely to be unhappy therefore!

I do miss the ’flipping through racks’ experience online - this is something the Internet retail industry needs to work on creating a viable substitute for, as well as how to track delivery of relatively low cost purchases. Online shopping in London is really quite amazing, as several stores now do same-day delivery; of course you pay a serious premium for that service, but it can come in very handy.

Shopping ultimately is an acquisitional activity, and in this regard the Internet is miles ahead - it has a wider range of products, better availability and better price - with lots of additional, clever value-added services. Destination Shopping - with its catwalk shows, marble floors, wood panelling, brass fittings and in-store dining experiences - just cannot compete if it is unable to provide the actual end-product you seek. I still believe there is plenty room for both, but both mediums need to improve, and stores should really makes proper use of the Internet - so that you can check if what you’re after is in stock on the premises. Of course there is another issue here, as I have sometimes encountered at HMV - the product is in stock, but no one seems to know quite where it has been filed away on the shop floor - the Internet with its computerised warehouse management and robot pickers - seems to have the advantage once more ... if only they would sort out tracking on low cost items ...