High Street is facing a ‘decade of misery’
HIGH Street retailers will endure another decade of gloom before the pressure will start to ease, according to former Waitrose managing director Mark Price.
Lord Price said that the business models of many retailers have been found wanting in the face of growing online competition, punishing business rates, rising staff costs, weak consumer confidence, price wars, falling footfall and the tepid economy.
As a result, he said retailers have to evolve and those that do not will not survive. He added that the list of future casualties is likely to include some of the biggest names on the High Street, even if the current or a future Government intervenes to help with things such as business rates.
“This is going to go on for a decade. If you look at the large legacy retailers, their business models are broken and some of them will not survive.
“Whatever the Government does to try to help will be just a sticking plaster,”
ENGAGINGWORKS, the employee recruitment, education and retainment service founded by formerwaitrose boss Mark Price, is raising around £2million to accelerate its growth.
Price said he already has a quarter of the money committed by high net worth investors and is on track to secure the rest by the end of the year.the money will be used to help Engagingworks achieve critical mass in the UK and help start preparations for its launch into the US market towards the end of 2020. It was founded in 2017 by Price and is profitable. It was set up by the former trade minister to provide firms with tools to measure and improve happiness levels.
Price said. “The way I look at it, it’s like cinemas. Once there were thousands of them and many closed when things like Blockbuster video and Sky appeared.
“But rather than die out, they adapted and evolved, they started introducing things like surround sound, better seats, food. It will be like that with retailers.”
According to the Centre for Retail Research, 16,337 individual stores have shut this year, with the loss of more than 130,000 jobs.
So far, 25 companies have become
insolvent this year. That compares to the 18,443 shops that were shut last year as 54 companies failed, which affected 137,719 roles.
The list of high-profile collapses this year includes maternity retailer Mothercare, Thomas Cook, Karen Millen and pawnbroker Albemarle & Bond.
The list of companies that have used an insolvency procedure known as a company voluntary agreement to shed their liabilities and stay in business include Debenhams,arcadia and Bonmarche.