Think of the centre of a city and its shopping district. From Oxford Street to smaller high streets and shopping centres they are almost universally grim. The stock story goes that the combined forces of the internet and the recession have made high street retail more and more costly. The only way to win is to squeeze prices. So we have 3 quid jeans and two pence t-shirts. High volume retail is the only route left. 

High streets – the centres of our cities –  have become bottom feeders, squeezing us for that last bit of novelty spending we can afford (despite our decades of hoarding and throwing away). We are at the bottom of the barrel. What type of high street do we want in 5 years time? Can retailers move beyond the last resort way of thinking, rethink their approaches and get out of this mess? Can high streets move to the centre of a new approach to living well that fits our rebalancing world.

Getting better at the wrong thing

Most high streets and shopping centres specialise in short, simple transactions. Money in till swapped for a bag with stuff in it. The better you are at this the more successful you are. Maybe some envisage moving from high volume retail to super high volume retail as a means to an end. Well that will certainly be the end. For as the transaction becomes smaller, faster, simpler, the satisfaction of the purchase will also drop. And if everyone is doing it, satisfaction will drop faster. At some point this breaks (if it hasn’t already).

Taken together we have got rapid urban decay in the centres of cities and towns, companies racing each other to the bottom (and out of business), and people drowning in paper shopping bags and rooms full of unwanted stuff, unable to prosper as their economy is knackered.

Resetting retail

Responsible retail is no longer just about having a tight supply chain and being hot on sourcing and labour standards. Building a new relationship with people and creating a business that is setup to thrive is about about urban renewal, making brilliant stuff and providing people with experiences that enrich their lives.

Imagine an Oxford Street where shops become workshops and retailers appeal to peoples creativity by teaching them how to upcycle clothes, cook delicious food, take better photos, make, build and share, hold inspiring talks, give career advice on how to get into their industry. Giving over retail space to creating these type of fora where people can learn and interact – backed up by online and mobile (think geo-location stuff) communities – is how retail resets for its next phase. Becoming the physical space for communities to come together will reboot retailer relationships with people who will visit their centre-of-town location to do something other than just buy stuff.

Oxford Street as mass collaboration hub

Instead of being loaded up with big brown bags, people will leave charged with ideas and new skills. This will turn city centres into mass hubs of creativity bringing people in, drawn by the desire to learn, share and make – helping them enjoy themselves more and live better. Who know’s, region specific user-led design workshops may help retailers make better stuff that people might actually want (and pay a premium for)?

Going home with more than bags

Making this happen needs third party partnerships, cross-sector collaboration and learning that comes from the outside – three things hopefully going on already. A starting point might be giving over a small concession to an organisation like Traid -which already has clothes banks in shops like Timberland – where they can hold upcycling workshops. Or it might look like Ikea’s recent idea – perhaps inspired by things like www.preloved.co.uk – of selling 2nd hand furniture in-store (which could turn into carpentry classes etcetc).

Saving our cities is about resetting retail. We might not be able to go back to an era of small independent shops everywhere but this is a type of 21st Century version that promotes interaction, relationships and creativity over our defunct consumer reality. I’m off to Oxford street to start mapping it out to draft a blueprint for what this might look like.

Check out Traid video here. Thanks for reading, do tweet if you’ve enjoyed.

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