Debenhams, the 242-year-old UK department store, has been bought by 15-year-old Boohoo for $75m. (Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration)
We're in the midst of a pandemic, a climate emergency, global political tension and – on European shores at least – the seemingly never-ending fallout from Brexit.
But are we also experiencing a quiet retail revolution, for both good and bad?
In a pattern that is becoming all-too familiar, stalwarts of the British shopping street are struggling, badly. "Lit" millennial start-ups-turned-mega-brands are not struggling – and they're coolly strutting in to the rescue. Sort of. They're really only interested in one thing: a name, and the legacy that name carries. Not the bricks-and-mortar shops, or the staff who work inside them.
Debenhams' flagship store on Oxford Street, London, on December 2, 2020 - the day it was announced that the UK-based multinational department store retailer would go into final Reorganization Administration and face possible bankruptcy. /AP
That's what happened to the UK chain Debenhams this week. Another big name, Topshop, looks like it's going the same way.
Debenhams has been around for generations – 242 years, to be precise. It still runs 118 big department stores across the country, employing 12,000 people, with whole floors full of fashion, cosmetics, electronics, toys and homeware. It's often the biggest store in town. But the online fashion firm Boohoo (15 years old, a retailing foetus by comparison) wants to ditch the lot – and take the Debenhams name and website only, for a price tag of $75 million.
Topshop's flagship store on Oxford Street, London. Its owner, Arcadia Group, fell into administration in November, putting 13,000 jobs at risk. /AP/Matt Dunham
Meanwhile, over at Topshop, fashion and cosmetics retailer ASOS, (slightly older but still only 20 and barely an adult), is closing in on a buyout. It's in "exclusive talks" with current owner Arcadia Group, which recently went into administration. But here, again, the new kid on the block has made it clear that it wants the brands only – Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, HIIT – not the shops.
All style over substance? It's bad news for thousands of employees of course, and an uncertain time for Britain's town and city centers.
But Jonathan Reynolds, director of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management at Oxford University, says there are silver linings and it's all part of a much-needed retailing reset.
Speaking to CGTN's Global Business Europe program, Reynolds agreed it does leave shopping streets in a "parlous state, but actually it's a bit like a forest fire running through… it gets rid of all the old wood and potentially creates space for new saplings to grow." He added that by "resetting the clock … there's scope for new types of businesses to become established there."
And Reynolds believes that calling store-based business dead is an "exaggeration," citing Amazon's plans to open physical stores in towns and cities around the world.
"I think the consumer is going to be the winner out of all this," he said.
One size definitely doesn't fit all. It never does, as online clothes shoppers will testify. But the fates of Debenhams and Topshop show there is definitely a pattern emerging.