The long-lost British brands alive and well in the wealthy Arab world

It has been a long time since any British shopper set foot inside a Debenhams, a Mothercare, an Early Learning Centre or even a British Home Stores.

In recent years these much-loved high street institutions have closed their doors for the last time, after finding the going just too tough in the UK retail environment.

But 4,000 miles away, all four continue to go from strength to strength in shopping centres in rich regions of the Middle East. The long-lost British brands are not only alive and well, but thriving, in locations including Dubai, Doha and Riyadh.

Retail analysts say the revival is perhaps down to the fact that shoppers in the Middle East have been slower to adapt to online shopping and are accustomed to sheltering from the heat in air- conditioned malls, meaning that the “high street” has struggled less. The popularity of British shops abroad is also down to an association with heritage and quality, analysts add.

It comes as the British high street continues to be gutted of its best-known names, with brands including The Body Shop, Wilko and Ted Baker closing down stores. The high street is being further undermined by Britain’s biggest banks closing hundreds of branches, with more than 5,000 shut since 2015. But even shops that have closed all their stores in Britain can be found abroad.

Debenhams, the department store, began with a single store in London in 1778 and at one point had 124 stores across the UK. But it was forced to close all its British shops in 2021, after floundering during the pandemic.

It was bought by Boohoo, the online retail group, and there are bricks-andmortar Debenhams stores in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman and Qatar. The Abu Dhabi branch of Debenhams, at the centre of the high- end Galleria shopping mall, attracts a variety of shoppers – both Emirati and tourists, or expats.

But while British visitors will find the store’s branding familiar, they may be less unacquainted with its range of fulllength dresses that extend from wrist to ankle. These are required for the heat – and to comply with the dress rules.

Mothercare, which was founded in Surrey and closed all its UK shops in 2019 when it went into administration, still has stores in 36 countries. These include Saudi Arabia, Oman, India, the Philippines and Belarus. British Home Stores, the department store, went into administration in 2016, resulting in the closure of all 163 shops amid criticism of the way it had been managed by Sir Philip Green, its former owner.

The BHS brand was then bought by the Qatari Al-Mana group, which briefly continued to operate an online store for UK customers. It now operates stores in

Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The website for Qatar’s Landmark Mall, where one BHS branch is located, makes no mention of the brand’s collapse in Britain.

Early Learning Centre lost the vast majority of its UK shops by 2019. But the toy specialist still has its own independent stores in countries including the United Arab Emirates and Qatar – as well as Canada and Australia. Ian Scott, an international retail consultant, said: “In the Middle East, a mall is a huge airconditioned space where many people will spend all day relaxing because it’s simply too hot to walk around outside. So you’ve got a captive audience.”

Although consumers in the Middle

East were slow to start shopping online, Covid accelerated the growth of online platforms, and ecommerce in the region is expected to reach $50bn (£39bn) by 2025, according to a report by Deloitte.

In contrast, the UK’s ecommerce sector is projected to be worth more than $285bn by 2025, according to the International Trade Association.

Scott says the expectation that British brands will be better quality than others is key to their success abroad. “There’s a perception of heritage and history which goes with all British stores and products – just like associating Germany with high- end engineering, and Italians with high fashion.”

But Scott says that while the shops might look the same as they did in the UK from the outside, the contents are likely to be different. “That [the British brand] will be the initial hook rather than the contents of the stores, which will probably be significantly different.”

Amna Khan, a senior lecturer in consumer behaviour and retail at Manchester Metropolitan University, says we should not be surprised at the success of these British retail exports operating in the region. “Consumers in the Middle East and Asia are very status driven, and British brands appeal to them because global attitudes and perceptions towards the UK mean those products will give them status in their countries,” she says.

“Many Arab consumers come to the UK just to shop.” The academic says there is a stronger focus on shopping as socialising, and that it is often combined with eating out, in the Middle East than in the UK. Ms Khan adds: “It’s a real cultural focus point, and the fabric of their culture. And there’s a lot of history behind that – just look at the extravagant bazaars you find across the Middle East.”

Madeleine Ross