Walking through the lone example of TK Maxx Woman last week it was hard not to wonder which retailers might do something similar.

TK Maxx Woman (on which there will be a feature in the forthcoming issue) is that increasingly common thing, a spin-off from an existing format.

As the name would suggest, this store, in Putney, is aimed solely at women and with some judicious merchandising and a general rejigging of its graphics, TK Maxx has become TK Maxx Woman. And next door to it was a branch of Halfords Metro.

All well and good. These are obvious easy wins for retailers that want to spread their wings without the commitment of a full-line store and where more local shopping is the order of the day. It’s the same line of thinking as is being deployed by John Lewis with its John Lewis at Home format, which costs around a third of the price per square metre of putting together one of its department stores.

The only question is how niche can you go? All three of the retailers mentioned so far have actually been quite cautious in their approach. For TK Maxx, women still amount to around 50% of the population and they tend to shop for clothes more than men. The Halfords Metro idea is just a simple way of branding a small branch of Halfords and John Lewis at home is hardly restricting the merchandise franchise as far as shoppers are concerned – these are still pretty big stores.

Rather more adventurous would be the New Look accessories unit in The Mall at Cribbs Causeway. This may have a few bags and hairgrips on sale, but is overwhelmingly a shoe shop. At which point you might think there would be some mileage in Primark taking its shoe offer, and opening standalone units, or its men’s clothing or womenswear, come to that.

At a point at which the large, successful retailers continue to grumble that the right kind of sites don’t come along, wouldn’t it make sense to consider honing off some of the most successful parts of their offers and taking some of the thousands of empty units that litter UK high streets? Everybody would win. High streets and malls would look a trifle less neglected, retailers would get access to new markets and shoppers would have greater choice.

So come on Waterstones and HMV. Isn’t it time that a store selling just talking books, the best of both worlds, surely, is given due consideration?