Topshop left a hole in the high street – but can it be the one to fill it?

The hype of a return to physical retail follows Bestseller’s acquisition of a majority stake in the Topshop Topman brands last September, which saw a holding company of the Danish fashion giant enter a joint venture with Asos as co-owners.

With other British heritage brands, including Ted Baker and Debenhams, rebranding of late and bracing for an ecommerce comeback, it appears the trendy thing to do in 2025. But are Topshop and Topman set to go beyond an online relaunch with a return to bricks-and-mortar?

With multiple teasers posted on social media hinting at a return to London’s iconic Oxford Street, the launch of a holding website for Topshop and even London mayor Sadiq Khan jumping on the bandwagon, something is bubbling at Topshop HQ.

Called “the place to shop” and a former “unmissable highlight of every trip to London” by ex-shoppers on social media, the demand for a return of Topshop and Topman on the high street is most certainly there.

But is there scope for newness and a full brand revival, or is this simply a wave of nostalgia? Retail Week explores if Topshop and Topman can take off in the same way once again or if the glory days at Topshop are well and truly over.

Who are the new top retailers?

Given Topshop’s cultural prominence, it is quite striking to note that Shein, Zara and even Amazon have a greater market share now than Topshop did in 2014.

Topshop’s share of the UK apparel market in 2014 was 1.5% and 1.9% when Topshop and Topman were combined, according to GlobalData numbers. That put it just outside the top 10 biggest fashion retailers, which may come as a surprise to 20 and 30 somethings who saw it as the biggest brand in the country.

In fact, even Debenhams, which regained its status as a company again last week, had a bigger market presence back then than Topshop and Topman. 

Part of that might be due to the Arcadia brand’s focus on the younger consumer, whereas most of the top names in 2014 held a much wider appeal.

Ten years on and many of the names are the same, although both Next and Primark have leapfrogged Marks & Spencer to take first and second position.

So if Topshop didn’t even make the top 10 biggest fashion retailers back in its heyday, whether it can re-establish itself in today’s fashion market remains to be seen.

GlobalData senior apparel analyst Pippa Stephens says that rebuilding appeal again is possible and added that it’s all about visibility as a brand.

“Topshop and the other former Arcadia brands have been largely forgotten about by consumers,” she says. “Their range gets lost among the thousands of products and other third-party brands available through the online pureplay.

“However, if Topshop were to reintroduce physical stores, alongside the relaunch of its own dedicated website and increased accessibility through wholesale partners, it should help to bolster its visibility again.

“With its former flagship on Oxford Street previously being a destination for young shoppers, it would no doubt cause buzz and excitement if it were to venture into stores again, helping it to rebuild appeal.

It lost its share of wallet, but kept its share of mind

While Topshop lost its status as an independent retailer after the rights were bought up by Asos in 2021, the brand survived. As a result, the team at YouGov has been able to keep tracking the opinions of UK shoppers on Topshop long after its high street demise.

YouGov UK head of consumer insights Sarika Rana said that at the time of the buyout, it was “still a well-thought-of brand”. Its brand index score, which measures overall brand health was 4.3, which means more people thought positively of Topshop than negatively.

“While this dropped down to a low of 1.6 in February 2022 when the brand was taken over by Asos, it has since rebounded notably, and Topshop’s brand health now sits at 3.8,” Rana said.

Put another way, Topshop is the 49th most popular fashion and clothing brand in the UK based on the percentage of people who have a positive opinion of it. That puts it between Zara (48th) and Monsoon (50th) – which could also be a description of a prime British high street in 2013.

What has happened to its shops?

Last year, Savills retail research associate Ellie Marfleet did some fascinating work on the fate of former Topshop stores based on where the brand was active in 2019. Back then the brand had just short of 200 standalone stores in the UK (some of which would have also sold Topman) and around 3.5 million sq ft of floor space in the wider Arcadia portfolio.

Just below a fifth of these units (18%) have been repurposed or modified since then, which means they were excluded from the analysis. Of the remaining 82%, 58% have been reoccupied and 42% stood vacant as of 2024.

Fashion brands, such as Next and Flannels, have been the most likely to take an ex-Topshop space. JD Sports has taken on more former Arcadia units than any other brand – the sports and footwear retailer now has a market share of 5.2% despite not appearing in the top 10 apparel brands at all back in 2014. 

Part of what made Topshop quite different from the average brand today, says Marfleet, was its mix of smaller stores in high street locations and big flagship units. Those bigger units allowed space for forays into experiential retail – think DJ booths and cupcake stands.

Take the Oxford Street branch. “That was a host of different things that wasn’t just retail, which obviously we [now] see a lot more brands doing, but it’s interesting that it was pre-2017,” says Marfleet.

Yet it is some of those bigger units in prime locations that have been the hardest to move on. That is because it leads to higher rent, service charges and business rates, though Marfleet says that a growing number of units were under offer when she did her analysis.