High Street Retail - The Experience of a Life Time?

But more worrying still for the high street is that this figure could rise to as high as 50 pence within five years. Half of all money being spent will be spent online.

The research also showed that consumers spent over £26.5 billion online in the first six months of the year – more than the equivalent of all high street retail sales for clothing and footwear in the UK.

But what retail therapy can be administered to our bag-laden, logo-clad thoroughfares to keep them bustling?

With online shopping taking an ever increasing chunk of the consumers’ expenditure, it has been suggested that high street fashion should now focus on the experience.

The reality is though that high street fashion retailing, by definition, should always have had ‘the experience’ at its core, says Nick Brookes, a partner at Manchester-based Driven.

So, perhaps the real task at hand is to ensure that ‘the experience’ is the right one?

“Whilst online was always going to take sales away from the high street, the speed and size of this migration has probably had as much to do with the bad moves the high street made, as opposed to the good moves online made,” says Brookes.

SATURATED

“As markets became saturated and competitive pressures increased, the high street started to forget about the importance of service, environment and theatre as critical components of what made the retail experience special.

“As a result, the relationship with the customer started to become less involving and more transactional.

“The problem with building purely transactional relationships is that they play right into the hands of online. As such, high street fashion retailing doesn’t need to move to a new place, it just needs to return to what made retailing worth the trip – an added value experience has to be at the core of this.”

Yet, the shopping experience is becoming more important from a consumer perspective as lifestyle and fashion programmes are becoming increasingly prominent as part of popular culture, claims Gordon Bethell, managing director of Leeds-based Gratterpalm, with shows like How to Look Good Naked, Mary Queen of Shops and Ten Years Younger all reinforcing the nation’s obsession with fashion.

“Experience is no longer just about an airy shop, neatly folded clothes or nice ambience,” says Bethell. “It’s more personal. Consumers are looking to assistants for honest advice on fashion, colour and fit before making a purchase.

“More high street retailers are becoming focused on service as part of the shopping experience to differentiate clothing shopping as experiential rather than necessity.

Equally important – and in some respects more important to consumers in the current financial climate – is the focus on price. Low prices on quality products, regardless of service quality (such as Primark) is a definite sales driver. Experience and low prices gives a strong competitive advantage over internet retailers as customer’s purchases become not only tangible but also experiential adding further value to the retailers brand.”

Many have criticised value fashion marketing claiming that ‘cheap would die out’ but in the current financial climate value fashion retailers are thriving, continues Bethell: “It’s now socially acceptable to wear value clothing with celebrities like Micha Barton endorsing vintage goods and a Gok Wan teaching the nation how to create a designer outfit on a low budget.”

CREDIT CRUNCH

So, in this credit-crunch fueled economical climate, you would think that marketing a sector as non-essential as fashion would be tough going; but, interestingly, the luxury fashion sector seems to be doing well despite market conditions, according to Tessa Hartmann, MD of Glasgow-based fashion specialists the TFF Agency. She believes that there could be two reasons behind this.

Firstly the higher disposable income bracket doesn’t tend to worry about rising fuel costs and bills, she claims, citing French luxury goods group Hermès’ rise of 12.1% compared to 2007 figures.

“Meanwhile,” she continues, “in shops aimed at the younger market, where kids, young adults and even teenagers are less cautious with no experience of what a recession is, cash is still being spent. Brands like Primark and TK Maxx are also still doing well.”

Hartmann believes that the problem lies in the middle market where consumers are affected by the rising costs of basic bills.

“These consumers are very cautious, especially with children, school fees and high living costs to contend with. Such a situation, as much as it presents a problem to one area of the market, normally means an alternative area will benefit. For example, with fewer pennies in our pocket we will look for better produced, higher quality product to last us and to stand the test of time,” she continues.

DEPRESSING

“Depressing exchange rates are proving a headache to fashion retailers. With the US Dollar being the trading currency for retailers and suppliers sourcing in the Far East, they could be forced to pass on the increased cost to the consumer for their Spring 09 product. Many major retailers will buy currency in advance to try and off-set this headache. The only positive note is that a cheaper pound means that shopping in the UK could be more attractive to overseas buyers.”

But how can marketers take advantage of such conditions? Well, customers are fickle, says Gratterpalm’s Bethell. “If brands can identify their niche in the market appropriate to their potential customers and exploit it through media exposure in the applicable programmes and titles they want to align their brand with, perception can change rather rapidly.”

One obvious way that many fashion labels created a market niche is by securing the celebrity endorsement. And while there has previously been much debate amongst marketers on such tie-ins, it remains a successful strategy. When done well.

“Celebrity still sells, there’s no doubt about it,” says Driven’s Brookes. “But I don’t think the use of celebrity makes success an automatic ‘shoe in’.

“Kate Moss and Top Shop got it right in a lot of ways. She had the right values for Top Shop’s audience – that was critical. But of equal importance was that the endorsement was made tangible, it was a range – you could buy a bit of the Kate Moss attitude rather than just listen to it. The results speak for themselves. As does Kate’s resilience to maintain her position as a fashion icon. Definitely a case of how bad is good for business.

CELEBRITY

“Contrast this with Trinny and Susannah for Littlewoods. I’m sure the team at Littlewoods will tell us the endorsement has worked wonders for their business and I’m not in a position to disagree. But with rumours of a possible axing by ITV, due to waning popularity and record low figures for their latest series of Undress the Nation, it does show the precarious nature of celebrity endorsements.

“In essence, the advantages of celebrity tie ins are that they can help to build the values you want to portray for you brand. And because they come ‘ready made’, this can accelerate the process of building these values versus other more conventional brand building activities. The drawbacks being that, like the category, fame can be transient.”

As a nation we may be like sheep and more often than not, ‘if it’s good enough for her, then its good enough for me’ but, consumers are now beginning to tire of the celebrity culture that the UK has been engulfed by.

“Celebrity has saturated almost every aspect of our lives these days,” says Daniel Ibbotson of Glasgow’s Graphical House. “Also what a celebrity is has changed radically. I would like to think that there will be some kind of tipping point when they no longer hold such sway over us but I guess for now getting a celeb on-side is key for many brands. The disadvantages are pretty clear.”

As with all things, though, the best way to stand out is to be different. “Being different is what’s hard,” says Ibbotson. “Take risks, move against the flow, be original and adventurous but clever with your resources. Trust the creative people who you work with. At the moment it seems that everyone is trying to shout loudest but as we all know, that’s not always the best way to get heard.”

Nick Brookes agrees: “Do something outstanding,” he says. “There is still a lot of mediocrity in fashion retailing. We work with Footasylum, who are one of the brands that are looking to change this. The guys there recognised that there was an opportunity to create something distinct in the market. That brought the involvement, theatre and excitement back into retail.

“It has a distinct personality that runs though everything it does that sets it apart from other fashion retailers. It’s not for everyone – but that’s the point.

“You can’t be everything to everyone. Because you end up being nothing to everyone.

“I think that’s the point here really.

“Standing out really relies on you identifying a territory that is unoccupied. Even if this means creating the territory yourself. That’s the good thing about fashion though. People expect new things to happen. It’s those that make them happen that will stand out.”

However, once a brand has secured its own niche in the market, despite the transient nature of fashion, it can often be difficult to change such positioning.

Take Burberry for example. It reinvented itself in a relatively short space of time. But it probably took less time to unhinge all the good work as the brand started to attract “the wrong sort of buyer”, symbolised by that infamous shot of Daniella Westbrook dressed head to toe and push-chair in the brands iconic design.

One man who has been at the coal face of a high profile brand rejuvenation is Nick Gray, MD at retail specialists Live and Breathe. In the 90’s he headed up marketing at Ben Sherman. In the space of two years the team grew turnover from £4m to £60m. But, he warns, massive success and growth of this kind can bring its own problems.

“In this case, product growth translated into what became almost a fad. It’s important to get the right balance between volume and credibility.

“To change perceptions you need to employ all channels in the marketing mix and the whole process can be a very difficult one to control and measure, with a schedule of results which can lie very much out of the marketer’s hands. Often too the value of PR is underestimated.

PERCEPTIONS

“Crucially you cannot be seen to be trying too hard to change or create perceptions. A good example of this is when Tommy Hilfiger came to the UK, it threw a massive budget pre-launch into announcing its arrival. There was saturation promotion and a sense of omnipresence and quite frankly people were sick of the brand almost before it launched on the high street.”

But what lessons can online fashion retailers learn from the mistakes and successes of the high street to ensure an even larger chunk of the pie?

Colin Boyd, marketing manager of Drive Business – who create online stores for the likes of AllSaints, Ghost and Duchamp – says that while online will never entirely stop people from shopping in high street stores, there will be a shift in how consumers go shopping.

“As online retailing becomes ever more safe, high street stores are seen as a way of testing the product and the market. What is the quality like? Does it fit?

“Once that has been established, a relationship is born. The online experience must replicate that experience. If you get lovely packaging in store (The White Company and Ghost for example), this level of service must be carried through online.

“If a store’s brand image is a reason people shop there then this must also cross over onto the online space. Many people are still not able to access particular high street brands so online must reflect the image of the high street stores.”

What do you think is the coolest retail brand based outside London? The Drum wants to know your views on brands for an upcoming feature which will look to identify ‘cool brands’. Email your suggestions to richard.draycott@carnyx.com and check The Drum’s website for your chance to vote on the UK’s coolest brands.