Forum topic: Popping up in PG this September

On the speeding up digital transformation theme, and specifically following one strand of the work recently highlighted in a presentation posted by Norris Morris, PG traders now have a quote from a UK award winning organisation in this field to help their cause. The price is small, particularly when shared amongst numerous outlets; call it half a lost cycling legal case, so let’s see what happens next.

All the big journalistic hitters are now on the high street case and singing essentially the same song: The Economist highlights that 16% of sales are now online and expects 40% by 2030 but the inevitable freed up retail space has uses as experience centres and housing; The Sunday Times’ business editorial highlights retail bricks and mortar space having increased by no less than 10% between 2000 and 2016, with online sales going from £nil to £60 bn over the same period, suggesting we are only a small way into the “seismic changes” affecting the industry and “the brutal truth is we have too many shops”; while a major piece in the FT talks of “evident overcapacity” and that there will be ”fewer retailers, fewer shops” and that there will be strugglers until a new equilibrium is reached. The FT also gives the Grimsey report high praise, in particular to “think of high streets as community hubs rather than shopping malls”. “PG high street as a community hub”, now there’s a phrase well over a decade old.