Comment: Retailers must adapt and change to survive

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It is absolutely futile trying to save the high street or the ‘traditional retailer’, or in fact any retailer, be it multiple or independent, with a flawed product strategy and trading execution.

There is no God-given right for survival, the consumer will ultimately determine your fate. The town I live in is 1,200 years old and there is no reason to suppose that it will not still be around in another 1,200 years.

For all that time there has been documented evidence of commerce taking place along the area we nowadays call the high street. Fast-forward to the modern era and look at a picture of the high street taken 100 years ago and compare it with what it looks like today; there is not one retail name you would recognise and, guess what, the same will be true in 100 years’ time.

The reason it is futile is that the customer has a new way of conducting commerce with retailers and that’s via digital platforms. If people do not want to physically visit you, then at least give them the opportunity to trade with you via such a platform.

It’s ironic that shops, which have for so long been the panacea for all retail ills, are proving to be the bane of so many retailers. Shops have now become a millstone around a lot of retailers’ necks and have proved the downfall of a number. Who would have thought?

Unfortunately we still have a generation of leaders who still don’t get the scale and severity of the tsunami heading retail’s way and how it is altering the retail landscape forever, not just the high street. This means there will be more failures to come on the high street and beyond.

I don’t want to appear unsympathetic to the plight of the shop. However, we need to be rational and, as business leaders, we have to adapt and change and embrace this new world order.

It is clear that there will continue to be retail commerce in the future, but not necessarily in the guise or format we currently recognise and have grown up with.