SPRING//SUMMER 2018 75 74 SPRING//SUMMER 2018 “THE local high street is in its death throes” thundered a recent article in The Times. It’s not, but deep changes are underway. Stationers are not among the worst-hit retailers, but they are being affected nevertheless, and forward-looking businesses need to understand the likely long- term changes. As usual the prime cause was identified as e-commerce. While overall retail sales have jumped by more than £80 billion in a decade, online has snaffled just over half of that extra business. An increasingly large chunk of that growth has ended up in the tills of multichannel retailers, as opposed to pure play online operators, according to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures. A decade ago online sales growth was blossoming, rising by more than half year-on-year, falling to 6% in 2014 but rebounding to 15% by the end of 2017, according to the ONS. Website sales by UK retailers were worth less than £14 billion a year, less than 5% of the total, ten years back. By the start of 2018 they reached more than £60 billion – nearly one-in-five of all pounds spent by consumers. But let’s not forget, more than four in five pounds are still spent in physical bricks-and-mortar shops. The slide in year-on-year growth halted in 2015.Three factors cranked up the growth rate. Purchases via smartphones, which most adults now carry in pockets and bags, met the maturing of mobile-friendly e-commerce websites. Expanding white van delivery networks made next day and same day deliveries easier than ever. Black Friday was hijacked by online sales. Last year, December, perennial star of the ‘Golden Quarter’ saw retail sales fall 1.5% below those for November as month-long ‘Blackvember’ stole its sales. The local high street has survived surprisingly well. To mid-2017 the number of shops operating in town centres actually increased by just over 300 in five years, according to the Local Data Company (LDC). The shop vacancy rate improved from 14.6% in 2011 when the government asked Mary Portas to report on high street fortunes, to 12.1% in the autumn of last year. Now 300 is not a lot when town centres host more than half of all the shops in the country, just over a quarter of a million, but this is not evidence of imminent demise. Many shops have disappeared from the margins of towns and from standalone locations, while retail parks have mushroomed. The figures are paradoxical: retail parks only host one in 40 British stores, but the latest rates revaluation shows the stores that trade there are on average more than ten times bigger than the average shop. Over five years, retail parks added five times as many units, net, as either town centres or shopping centres. That is where the other half of retail growth has gone. Each year just over 40,000 shops close down and about the same open up. The balance largely decides whether the shop vacancy rate rises or falls. It also determines what types of shop are doing well and which STATIONERY BIZ are declining. Non-food ‘comparison goods’ shops are in decline. Over five years we lost, net, 5,833 shops nationally, LDC figures show, while gaining 4,173 ‘leisure’ units. This is the story of coffee shops replacing fashion boutiques. Stationery shops actually made the ‘biggest losers’ top 10, but only because of the closure of Staples branches. They otherwise grew in number. Stationery has provided a stable presence on high streets over the years. It serves business and consumer, across a range of product areas from office supplies to personal gifts. The most complex segment is ‘Service’, covering everything from banks to barbers. It added 1,199 outlets in five years. Within this, independents added to their numbers while multiples closed in droves, particularly banks. The trend from ‘selling things to people’ to ‘doing things for people’ is the underlying story of the high street (not the ‘death throe’ tale) and this may be one of the clues to a rosy future for stationery. Services, delivered to shoppers in-store, provide the best justification to have a premises at all, as opposed to an online-only presence. Services come in many forms and stationery suppliers have always been quick to capitalise on opportunities. Personalisation is a good example of this and opens straight into the gift market – with the great advantage that stationery works as a self gift as well as a gift for others. To survive and thrive retailers need to be able to see beneath the surface of the high street and to understand the real structural changes that have happened – and have yet to happen. The high street story just keeps rolling on, and opportunity will always be found there. MICHAEL WEEDON reveals the changing face of the British high street, painting a picture that creates hope, not despair STATE OF THE HIGH STREET Photo:MichaelWeedon Photo:MichaelWeedon Photo:MichaelWeedon MEMORY JOURNALS OVER 60 GUIDED QUESTIONS INSPIRING THE RECIPIENT TO SHARE THEIR STORIES 01225 866225 JournalsOfALifetime.com/trade hello@fromyoutome.com NEW ADDITION TO OUR BEST SELLING JOURNALS www.luxorpen.com per ma nen t m mini perma nent marke r mini DAN PRODUCING FOUR MILLION PENS PER DAY COMPLETE BACKWARD INTEGRATION NIBS + INKS + RESERVORS + REFILLS For business enquiries: sales@luxoruk.com, export@luxoroffice.com HIGHLIGHTERS WHITEBOARD MARKERS COLORING MARKERS ECOWRITE SERIES BALL PENS/GEL PENS METAL PEN SERIES PERMANENT MARKERS BS 7272 Come visit YOOBI the stationery brand that GIVES BACK at Stand M638! 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