Moggy wrote:Currys might have a place at the moment, but I am not sure they are going to survive based on fridges and washing machines. Both of those are items that can be purchased online and delivered to your home – much more convenient than going to the shop itself.
Yep. I broke our last freezer 3 days before Christmas a couple of years back when I was engaged in a spot of over-aggressive defrosting to make room for all the XMAS goodness ( I was not popular with the wife on that day!
)
Currys
et al. were not even open at that point and their phone line said they couldn't get anything to me until the second week of January.
So I went to Appliances Online and they got me the frige-freezer I wanted for a cheaper price than Currys, delivered it the next day and even installed it and took away the old one for free which they were not supposed to be doing!
Too many high street stores have just been sleeping giants whilst the world changed around them, and now they are waking up to it all too late and paying the price.
As others have said some physical retail will always exist, sometimes you need to try something, see it in person, or simply get something right now and can't wait for an online delivery. But this will be an increasingly small part of the market. I sometimes wonder whether shops with a high street presence should have done deals with online retailers to effectively offer their services as "try before you buy" locations - everyone already uses the high street to look at stuff they then want to buy online, why not strike a deal so that you get some kick-back from that?