Banks are banks and shops remain shops. Putting one into the other will not equate to additional sales.

Last time I walked into a House of Fraser (HoF) store, just before Christmas, everything was just as it should be.

The beauty department was at the front, filled with the usual suspects.

There were a few floors of fashion and homewares and there was a standalone shoe department in the basement, which could readily shake a stick at its competitors.

But hang on, where was the bank?

Plans are apparently in place to do a deal with ‘challenger’ bank Tandem, to provide an additional service for HoF shoppers.

House of finance

Isn’t HoF a department store?

Perhaps it should be concentrating on differentiating its existing offer by way of improved layouts and visual merchandising?

If it goes ahead with this plan, is it likely that HoF will garner more shoppers as a result?

People can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times they hotfoot it into a high street branch during the course of a year

That is, presumably, the object of the exercise.

It might be worth asking what a bank does these days.

For most people today, a bank is an intangible entity from which services are drawn upon courtesy of a hole in the wall, a mobile phone or a laptop.

People can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times they hotfoot it to a high street branch during the course of a year.

Banks may be where your money is, but that doesn’t mean that a large building with a chunky-looking vault is required as evidence.

Disarray

Why would a HoF shopper need financial services when they are busy perusing the latest Linea range?

Tesco has been down this road in the recent past – and beaten something of a retreat.

There is a possibility that it may know its customers better than HoF.

It all smacks of an organisation in disarray – one that is seeking to find its place in the high street scheme of things

It all smacks of an organisation in disarray – one that is seeking to find its place in the high street scheme of things.

HoF could do worse than to nip this one in the bud.

In spite of what ‘retail’ banks might claim, banks and shops remain some considerable distance apart.

Those visiting the latter are probably not thinking too much about the former as they browse the rails.

Topics