The face of British shopping has evolved greatly over the years. Many are still very proud of and stand by the British high street as their first choice for a shopping destination. It is no secret however that a lot of high street shops struggle to stay open in this age of Amazon and other online retailers.
Though shops on the high street find themselves struggling to stay open with this new competition, other shops in shopping centres and other places such as the York Designer Outlet continue to thrive and do well. At a time where the footfall of high street shops has dropped by 2% in February 2019, according to the British Retail Consortium, the Designer outlet still sees thousands of customers coming through the doors daily.
Giovanni Frau has worked at the outlet for 14 years, so has seen for himself the growth of the centre. He says that the price points have a great effect on why people choose to shop there. “The Outlet can offer branded products at 30% cheaper than the high street.” In addition, he said that though places such as Primark and Topshop appeal to younger shoppers as they are much cheaper than a lot of high street offerings, and do follow popular trends with their designs, people that are more mature tend to come to the outlet to find the high quality brands, even if they are more expensive than buying items from Primark. “People in the senior years of their careers would choose shops in the Outlet as they have more financial resources, so they don’t mind spending a bit more for a premium product.”
As well as the Outlet offering the name brands, it offers a more rounded shopping experience as a whole than the high street does. Since it offers all the shops in a much smaller area, it makes shopping there much more convenient as there are multiple brands offering different services all within a very close radius of each other. As Giovanni went on to say “Rather than being just a shopping destination, it is more of an experience or a day out.” As well as this, it offers a much more family-friendly experience than shopping on the high street, since there is a play park to allow a break from shopping for children, which is something high street shops cannot offer.
It is also very well known that in places such as York, parking is massively expensive. This is very discouraging for people, and since places like the Designer Outlet offer free parking, that does encourage people to just shop there, instead of paying more money just to be able to go into the town centre.
The future of the British high street seems to be on the decline, but with places like the Designer Outlet thriving, it would seem like it is not shopping that is dead, but rather it is the failure of the high street to offer a more complete experience as shopping centres do, things like free parking and kids play parks then, appear to be much more attractive than you might think.