Comment: What happened to Debenhams at Christmas?

What could have been done to make Christmas happen at the department store retailer?

Last week brought the start of the Christmas trading updates and they were a mixed bag.

Towards the upper reaches of the festive tree, Next, House of Fraser and John Lewis all beamed brightly. Lower down however was Debenhams. The department store group claimed that the Christmas rush just didn’t happen. Yet it appears to have done so for others.

It is pertinent to remark that just before Christmas, much was made of the revamp of the Debenhams flagship on Oxford Street. It was, and is, very good, taking a very large store and more or less completely (with the exception of the mid-shop escalator which features a travelator-like flat portion before the stairs begin to rise on each level) reinventing it. The management was justifiably proud of what had been done and said that the remodelling put them back in the game as far as Oxford Street department stores are concerned.

Possibly, but this was a revamp that was long overdue - nothing had been done for almost a quarter of a century at a time when the normal life expectancy of a store fit-out is around five years, although possibly longer in the case of a department store. Much longer than that and things begin to look tired - which must mean that prior to the makeover this Oxford Street landmark must have been on its last legs, suffering from extreme fatigue.

Now it’s back and given its size and prominence, it should have been dragging customers off the street in their droves over the Yuletide period. Perhaps it did, but there is a very real chance that things might not have been quite so straightforward.

There is just a possibility that shoppers had got used to a tired shop and getting them back through the doors might have been rather more problematical than might have been anticipated. Now couple this with the fact that there are many Debenhams branches beyond Oxford Street that are also crying out for revamps.

It is the easiest thing to keep trading, do nothing about the way a store looks for a protracted period and hope for the best. Eventually however the cracks will begin to show and there is a real chance that if the rot sets in shopper loyalty will be tested to the utmost.

That is not to say that the Oxford Street store doesn’t cut the mustard. It does, but things should perhaps have been done rather sooner than they have and more generally, Debenhams has to do something about its stores in multiple locations.