Department stores fight back against the internet shopping boom
DEPARTMENT stores are waging a war against online retailers in a battle which will transform the face of the British High Street. Yesterday, Debenhams announced plans to overhaul its shops with beauty treatments, restaurants and prosecco bars, to encourage shoppers to spend more time there.
It follows House of Fraser and John Lewis which are trying to lure shoppers into stores with yoga studios, spas and champagne bars.
The radical overhauls come as department stores look anxiously at America where more than 3,500 stores are expected to close in the next couple of months.
Sears, Macy’s and JC Penney are among those to suffer, reeling from a punishing slump in the industry which has left many traditional US shopping malls deserted.
In the UK, department stores are fighting to prevent a similar fate by investing millions of pounds in upgrading shops – and in some cases closing underperforming stores.
They want friends and families to view shopping as a day out. Richard Hyman, an independent retail analyst, said: ‘ These shops have to follow their customers. Just sitting there and being the department stores of three or four decades ago isn’t going to get them anywhere.’
John Lewis has said it wants to ‘reinvent’ the department store by stocking more of its own brands and offering services such as bikini waxes. It has also introduced opticians, travel agents, spas and extra restaurants.
Like its rivals, the 153-year-old retailer is halting new store openings. New boss Paula Nickolds has called the current climate a ‘turbulent and challenging’ time for the industry.
‘ Our brand is our secret weapon,’ she said. ‘ We need to offer customers things you can only get from John Lewis.’
That strategy has seen the retailer introduce its own luxury womenswear brand.
House of Fraser is stripping back the number of clothing brands it sells and focusing on a new core shopper known as ‘Jo’.
The chain has discovered its core customer earned two or three times the national average, had children, and had a degree. Targeting this affluent shopper, it will introduce yoga studios, wellbeing centres and restaurants.
It has already introduced cham- pagne bars in stores including Manchester and Belfast.
All these measures are aimed at encouraging shoppers to visit instead of using online giants such as Amazon and Asos.
And being ‘different’ is also seen as a key factor. Debenhams wants to make its beauty floor ‘ social- media friendly’, with shoppers encouraged to take and share pictures of themselves on Instagram.
Sergio Bucher, chief executive, said: ‘Our goal is not to stuff our floors with a lot of products, but rather to use part of the space as a traffic- driving element to get customers to come back more frequently. Customers who eat with us or use services visit our stores three times more often than those that don’t.’