We only hear one story about the British High Street, and it’s a long-running saga of failures. Household names like BHS, Toys R Us, Dixons, Phones 4 U, Comet, Maplin and Poundland have all been part of the sorry tale. Marks & Spencer is shutting stores and John Lewis is looking nervous as records for online purchases continue to be broken. BBC News published figures recently claiming 20,000 retail jobs were lost in 2018, with another 20,000 at high risk.

And yet it’s not the only High Street story. Some stores–a real variety on main streets, backways and in the retail parks–are bustling, thick with customers. These include branded coffee shops, new supermarkets, pop-up markets and many of the independent boutique outlets. What makes them different to struggling large retailers is that they better fulfil the human need for a social shopping experience: more chaotic, more unique, encouraging more interaction and spontaneity.

Robots in the aisles

The paradox for modern retail is that, after decades of management attention to increasing efficiency and profitability, the root of its declining appeal is just this professionalism. The shopping experience in large brand named stores has become highly structured, scripted and managed, whisking customers from car park to displays to tills without touching the sides. There’s very little ever left to chance, luck or accident. For instance, the well-documented history of M&S that saw a relentless pursuit of profits through cost reduction, led to core values and service being destroyed as expensive and knowledgeable shop assistants were replaced by centralised tills and fewer, less skilled staff. Indeed many High Street shops have unmotivated, low skilled, and rather disengaged shop assistants, engaged purely in selling as a transaction.

It’s all very dull. Consciously or otherwise, shoppers know they have been through a process which has solely been about taking their money in as efficient and painless a manner as possible. It’s the kind of transactional relationships that can just as well –and more cheaply, more comfortably –be done from home via a digital device.

We need to rethink the High Street, not just as a means of transit between shops, but as moments of lived experience, as voyages of discovery. As a utopian example, think of the exciting little lanes that weave around Venice, a glimpse of a church at one end of the street, the suggestion of a leafy square, all the signs of people not just shopping but living, creating the desire to move. In this digital age where arguably there is even greater need for excuses for social interaction than before, High Streets need to be more stimulating, exciting and surprising spaces; where people want to go. High Streets need to evolve to be more in tune with human sympathies, desires and needs.

There are interesting examples of what’s possible in the railway station at Tynemouth, Newcastle, or the centre of Altrincham, near Manchester, where spaces have been converted into colourful and quite disorderly marketplaces: unscripted contexts for people to explore and experience. Both have been successful in creating a new buzz, plenty of footfall, and an ability to re-engage with all age groups. The High Street should learn from the principle of markets and think of all the nooks and crannies that can be discovered, little secret places where a few tables allow discovery and provide seclusion, privacy and atmosphere; not places for putting the bins in order to improve the efficiency with which shoppers can move from one shop to another. It’s a principle that has worked for many years for some established retailers, like Lidl and Aldi, where customers are left to discover new finds, and create their own orderliness; and also Ikea, which has managed to create space for playfulness, arranging the shop experience such that it affords experimentation, imagination, recombination and creativity.

Save the environment

The High Street is an ecosystem. It’s healthy for older organisms that have perhaps grown too large, too wooden, to be cut back and allow for new strains of life to take their place. The big brands have been too successful for too long. It’s important that the entire High Street is in good health, the whole shopping environment, not just one or two who are bucking trends. For example, some commentators have argued “the future is coffee”, referring to the success of the chains in providing spaces for social interaction. But coffee shops will always be dependent on footfall from people drawn to the whole collection of High Street activities. As these decline, coffee shops are threatened.

Blame for the collapse of the old High Street mode –it’s inability to compete against the rise of online shopping – can’t be attributed solely to the large retailers. They have been caught in a vicious circle of paying high and everincreasing business rates, encouraged to stick with a high volume, transactional model. Weighed down by heavy fixed costs and investments, instant returns and high profitability have been an imperative, leaving retailers bounded in terms of strategic thinking. In turn, local councils have been under pressure to raise funds due to funding cuts from central government. The rejuvenation of the High Street for the sake of communities and societies will benefit from a more enlightened attitude from the authorities at all levels, a relaxation on rates to give new models a chance to take root.

There is still the opportunity for large retail players to reinvent their offerings. John Lewis is one example of a giant investing in becoming more innovative. The question will be whether operations only used to incremental innovation, staffed by people only used to transactions roles will ever be able to match the energy and fresh vision of start-up entrepreneurs.

We’ll keep on hearing bad news for the High Street, but I’m optimistic. It’s a wake up call and good news for shoppers in that change has to happen. There are going to be many more reasons to get back onto the High Street, for shopping to become an enjoyable, sociable part of modern life again.

Duncan Angwin is the Sir Roland Smith Professor in Strategic Management and Head of Department of Entrepreneurship and Strategy. d.n.angwin@lancaster.ac.uk