Do you like shopping? For shopaholics in the UK, the place to head to used to be the “high street”. It was the place where you could find familiar fashion brands and essential everyday items in the centre of a town. But change in our shopping habits has taken its toll on the British high street.
News about shops losing money and shutting is now common. Some city-centre department stores have closed and even long-established retailers (零售商) have reported profitslumps. According to a recent survey, a record 2,481 shops disappeared from UK high streets last year — up by 40 percent.
As the BBC's Emma Simpson writes, things have become a lot harder for traditional retailers in recent years. They have faced rising costs from wages, business rates and the requirement to introduce Europe's new data law. But the biggest threat has come from online shopping. She says “Consumers now spend one in every five pounds online — and if businesses are seeing 20 percent fewer sales on the shop floor, as well as their fixed costs rising, then profit margins will be squeezed.”
While some of us like to window shop — browsing for things to buy, only to purchase them online at a discount — the fact is that, overall, shoppers are making fewer visits to high streets. Eventually, town centres could become like ghost towns. If people aren't out and about shopping, they won't use other services, like cafes, restaurants and cinemas, which leads to job losses. The high street has also suffered from the arrival of big shopping malls, which offer a retail experience under one roof, with free parking, away from the bad weather!
Meanwhile, back on the high street, some shops still exist. Analysts have said it's those that have moved away from traditional retailing that are surviving. These include beauty salons, nail bars and independent coffee shops — but are these kinds of shops enough to keep the British high street open for business?
