Put off, put off, put off. Store design departments up and down the country must be becoming increasingly familiar with this, or something of the kind, as the mantra that emerges from retail boardrooms when the matter of new stores or refurbishments appears on the agenda.

And who can blame them? After all, if shoppers aren’t storming the doors in quite the manner that share- or equity-holders expect, then the only way forward is to cut costs. Store portfolio capex tends to make a dent in the budget at the best of times. However, the big question has to be how long can you not do anything? In the current climate, doing nothing looks, on the face of it, an attractive proposition. Nobody gets hurt, nobody needs to worry about project progress and perhaps, most importantly, there are no interruptions to trading.

But even for those who choose to adopt a policy of benign retail stasis, there is a price – and that is the cost of being outshone by the champions of change. The glowing example of the polar opposite of doing nothing must be (Sir) Philip Green.

Having spent, it is rumoured, something in the region of £24m on getting his New York show on the road – surely the antithesis of sitting on your hands – he must be looking for a little back home payback. Again, purely on the basis of rumour, it is understood that much of what has been done in New York will make an appearance in the UK. The focus, of the media at least, has been on when he will do a New York on the Oxford Circus flagship.

But this is to ignore the fact that Topshop as a brand is rather more than central London. More interesting perhaps is the fact that Newcastle’s Eldon Square shopping centre (undergoing a bit of a refurbishment at present) looks likely to be the first recipient of a New York-influenced Topshop. The lessons of the Big Apple are being applied beyond the UK capital.

Quite apart from the fact that Topshop continues to be the mid-market fashion brand to match, it continues to invest in creating improved stores interiors, like the other major players.

Looked at from this perspective, doing nothing shouldn’t be an option. It’s just a matter of how what money there might be is used to best effect. Keeping it in the bank rather than improving a store portfolio might prove a somewhat short-term win if the actions of the best big chains are anything to go by.

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