It’s a familiar and frightful story: the once-beloved UK high street is in terminal decline. The perfect storm of a global pandemic, online shopping and crippling rents and business rates is set to usher in the end of the physical store. 

The statistics look bleak – only this week it was revealed that Debenhams’ 118 stores look likely to shut as pureplay Boohoo bought the department store group’s brand and website to run online only.

Our own store openings and closures report – prepared in conjunction with Local Data Company – hasn’t been overly positive in recent editions.

Even the record 11,120 closures (and record net decline of 6,001 stores) in the first half of  2020 don’t show the full picture. The data excludes temporarily closed stores, so there’s still worse to come. 

Elsewhere, we’ve seen footfall drop by more than 80% during the first lockdown and it’s currently at just over 70%.

“We have an emotional attachment to bricks-and-mortar locations. Steady successes in certain sectors show that consumers still want to visit shops”

But, despite all the doom and gloom stories, there’s still a future for the store. 

That’s because we have an emotional attachment to these bricks-and-mortar locations. The resurgence of local high streets and steady successes in certain sectors show that consumers still want and need to visit shops. 

We’ve seen the demand for physical stores increase after each lockdown and our December 2020 consumer survey shows that 65% intend to continue shopping more on their local high street when normality returns. 

Since Covid-19, local stores have played an important social and community role. They’ve kept people fed, looked after and sane. 

In Blackpool, for example, my parents have relied on their almost daily visits to their neighbourhood Co-op to keep them not only fed but also connected to society, particularly when I cannot visit. They’ve learned to buy their groceries online, but they still prefer to do it in person.  

That’s because, while there’s a convenience to shopping online, there’s an experience to shopping in store that we are all missing. 

Think about your own shopping experiences over this year’s golden quarter. Did you manage to shop in store? If not, did you miss it? 

Just before Christmas, it was my son’s 18th birthday. We were fortunate enough to get to Oxford Street before the lockdown to choose his present: a grown-up watch he was excited to select himself. 

Some purchases are so important you need to make them in store – this was something he needed to see, feel and experience, and emotional for us as parents. 

And physical stores are just as important for more day-to-day purchases. Despite ordering my Christmas groceries online, for example, I still visited M&S for my Christmas treats, my local high street Tesco for a top-up shop and Morrisons to get some cooking advice from my favourite butcher. It’s that human element that is the differentiator with online.

However, for stores to survive, they need to evolve. And that means rethinking the role they play. 

We know it’s possible: we’ve seen retailers change in the short-term to meet consumers’ immediate needs throughout the pandemic, such as safety, bringing the store to the home – through personal stylist video calls, for example – and click-and collect-services. 

“There’s a real opportunity here to bring the best of digital and physical, turning stores into places that inspire, entertain and educate”

But how shoppers engage with retailers is changing and so are their long-term needs. Retailers need to rethink how they attribute economic value to stores and how they make them an integral part of any customer journey. 

There’s a real opportunity here to bring the best of digital and physical, turning stores into places that inspire, entertain and educate, while fulfilling operational needs.

Customers may not need as many stores as before, but they still want them – possibly just in a different location or serving a different purpose. 

Some brands are already waking up to this and looking to use stores for marketing as well as for sales. 

We’re seeing brands such as Sweaty Betty using some stores as workout studios to create a community environment. And, elsewhere, Ikea is opening mini-stores on the UK high-street, realising the importance of a physical presence in the right place.

As we head into a return to the ‘Roaring 20s’ post-lockdown, there’s undoubtedly a future for the store. 

For retailers, the challenge will be working out what role it plays for them. Or perhaps, more importantly, what role it needs to play for their consumer.