It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the big high street retailers slashed their portfolios post-2008 to between 80-100 stores – the number often cited as the optimum required to reach the majority of UK consumers. Or did they? The reality is that the number of stores culled was far more modest and, at the discount end of the spectrum, the opposite was true: favoured by bargain-hunting shoppers, the top 50 value fashion and comparison goods retailers significantly expanded, with each now having an average portfolio of 246 stores.

Looking at the situation today, the number of stores a retailer has is likely to correlate with where they sit in the market. Premium retailers can operate from a small portfolio as they know they are destinations in themselves and shoppers are prepared to cover a significant distance to visit them. Conversely, mass retailers with functional product ranges have less appeal so need to ensure they are front of consumers’ minds otherwise they will lose share to other more visible competitors – no-one is going to travel three miles to the one high street chemist if there’s another comparable retailer only 10 minutes' walk away. Therefore these retailers need to be very visible in secondary and tertiary locations to ensure they are as handy as possible for the majority of consumers. Examining a sample of store portfolios across the retail spectrum illustrates the point:

The importance of convenience has long been acknowledged by the grocers, who have seen shoppers making more frequent ‘basket’ trips, hence the rise of the c-store. But it also applies to value and mass retailers who sell affordable everyday goods and, increasingly, to fashion retailers who need to be able to support consumer demand for a daily fashion fix.

Take Pep & Co and Argos, for example. The former has aggressive plans to expand its high street presence while the latter has re-calibrated its distribution model to ensure that even its smallest high street store can provide immediate, same day or next day fulfilment on approximately 20,000 products. Both see the local high street as crucial to their business, demolishing the myth that the high street is dead: it’s very much alive and kicking but has evolved to put convenience at the forefront.

Further information

Contact Savills Retail.