Ongoing Decline Of The High Street?
In Spring this year Marks & Spencer’s chief Stuart Rose reported that sales on the High Street hadn’t got any worse, but that they hadn’t got any better either.
From the looks of what I saw on the High Street yesterday he couldn’t be more right and maybe since his reassurances things have indeed now got worse.
I spotted this guy yesterday, ringing a bell and shouting about a special 2 day discount event at House of Frazer. Now when House of Frazer has to claw for sales in the lead up to Christmas, you know things are looking bad for the High Street.
In January this year PC World owner DSG predicted that their High Street sales will plummet by 10% over 2009. The brand also owns Curry’s and Dixons and expect a similarly poor performance from those chains.
Hopefully the decline of the High Street is less about people being too lazy to walk and buy their stuff (Internet shopping) and more about what the Internet can offer us when compared to the dregs of the High Street product range.
If the High Street continues to struggle, maybe this will pave the way for new innovative High Street brands. That rent prices drop low enough to allow someone with a great product range (who can currently only afford to sell online), to grab a spot on the High Street.
And Then Came Dupenny
If the High Street wants to survive what we need to see is fresh blood like startup retail brand Dupenny, who have some amazing cheeky retro products (samples of my favourites shown below)
In May Brighton based Dupenny were one of four winners of Shell LiveWIRE’s ‘Grand Ideas’ Awards. Business owner Emily Dupen-Hopkins used the £1,000 prize money to fund the development of her online shop, and a great shop it is: www.dupenny.com
Dupenny are stocked in ‘NotOnTheHighStreet.com‘ amongst other stores. I’ve actually shopped at Notonthehighstreet.com myself, it’s a great shop for stuff that is basically far better than you can find on the high street.
Watch this fabulous and very amusing startup story video from Dupenny. It’s also an excellent example of how to create a simple and yet very impressive business video.
You can view more great examples of business videos in the Shell LiveWIRE video lounge, and if you think yours is good enough to feature you can submit it for consideration.
