At the Retail Week Live event last week Dixons Carphone boss, Sebastian James, warned of the impact the explosion in consumer connectivity will have on the high street over the next 2 years and how it threatens those retailers (and their shopfitters) which do not prepare and adapt for the new world order that connectivity is bringing.
But whilst the digital era of connectivity could threaten those retailers which fail to adapt, others see connectivity and the digital era as being the saviour of the high street. The Digital High Streets Advisory Board has planned 4 initiatives to revamp the high street by 2020. See Retail Week for the full story at www.retail-week.com/waldendigital
These 2 viewpoints coincide with Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ announcement that net high street store closures in 2014 were 987, up from net 371 in 2013, warning that “ …traditional retail channels to market are being wiped out and new channels are being created, often in the online rather than the real world”. Cause for concern for manufacturers of physical retail display equipment.
But whilst general retail forecasts have fallen 5% over the past year, there is wide variation across the non-food sector, reflecting the fortunes of those retailers which are adapting their physical presence in bricks, mortar and shopfittings to meet the expectations and demands of the connected consumer. And fashion (a key sector for Dymond Shopfittings) is at the forefront of this battle ground.
Shopfitters and shopfittings manufacturers make an important contribution in adapting and modernising the physical store experience to dovetail with increasing digitalisation. For those of us metalwork manufacturers who remain responsive, innovative and high-quality partners, retail display equipment remains a very important market.
Meanwhile the Government has just announced the long awaited rates review, billing it as the most wide-ranging ever, with the aim of modernising the system to reflect changes in the value of property. This will also have a critical impact on physical stores and therefore the demand for shopfittings and retail display equipment.