The HoF flagship on Oxford Street may be pleasantly glamorous, but this isn’t enough as we head into 2018.

The signs in the windows of House of Fraser on Oxford Street yesterday seemed prescient: ‘Discover the House of Fraser Sale’.

Given all the rumours about the retailer merging with Debenhams, being sold or even falling by the wayside, the banners seemed about right.

This is not to say that it wasn’t busy. The first floor (men’s formal casual and shoes) and those above it (womenswear) were certainly filled with shoppers looking for bargains, although not as many heading for the escalators were clutching HoF bags as the management might perhaps have been hoping for.

“If shoppers had been beamed down from Planet Consumer into the middle of the store, they’d have been hard-pressed to work out where they were”

The ground floor, beauty and gifts, and the basement, women’s shoes, were signally quieter, perhaps because fewer reductions were on offer.

One thing was apparent, however – if shoppers had been beamed down from Planet Consumer into the middle of the store, they’d have been hard-pressed to work out where they were.

In truth, there was little that was wrong with the appearance of this store if department store standard is what you are looking for. But this positive is also a distinct negative.

There are a fair number of department stores in London’s West End, and one of the reasons that some are successful is they are not run-of-the-mill.

Too samey

It matters little how swish an interior looks and feels if it happens to be similar to what others are doing, and therein lies the problem for House of Fraser.

Shoppers are perfectly well aware that there is a good selection of brands in a HoF store, but this is the case in plenty of other places, and there the reason for visiting comes to an end.

The fact that the conversion rate on a Sale weekend in early January didn’t look particularly convincing perhaps hints at a store that looks a little ordinary, albeit pleasantly glamorous, and where the merchandise does not have much to mark it out as being different from its rivals.

More broadly, this is the problem that confronts many operating in this part of the upper mid-market. The stores may be respectable, but that just isn’t enough when perhaps it might be better to shop online.

As we head into 2018, mid-market department stores look more under pressure than most, but much of the problem is of their own making.