Like businesses in British city centers, Oxford Street has suffered and experienced major upheavals in recent years. Several of its flagship and historic brands have closed their doors. British Home Stores, better known by its acronym, Bhs, went bankrupt in 2016. The imposing Top Shop store, specializing in youth fashion, closed in 2021 with the fall of its owner, the Arcadia group. Debenhams, established since 1919 at numbers 334 to 338, also went bankrupt in 2021. Finally, House of Fraser, in the street since 1879 under the name DH Evans, disappeared in 2022. At the same time, 29 sales stores sweets and low-end tourist products were installed there in 2023, compared to 15 stores in 2017. Enough to say in April 2023 to the boss of Marks & Spencer Stuart Machin that this artery, “supposed to be the jewel in London’s crown, is a national disgrace”.
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The terrible competition from online commerce
Kien Tan, retail specialist at PwC, is not surprised. “This is part of an underlying trend: fundamentally, people are buying more and more things online”he explains, with supporting figures. “Between 2015 and 2023, city centers lost 20% of their retail businesses, which corresponds exactly to the proportion of the shift from in-store sales to online sales.” During the first eleven months of 2024, 26.9% of all retail purchases were made online, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, representing an estimate of 150 billion euros for the entire country. year 2024. During the first eleven months of 2019, the year before the pandemic, their share amounted to 18.9%.
Town centers in the rest of the country are much more affected than Oxford Street, particularly due to the disappearance of businesses essential to their survival. During the first half of 2024, 247 bank branches, 432 pubs and 481 pharmacies closed their doors. And since the pandemic, 30% of betting shops have disappeared. “People traveled expressly for these services”recalls Kien Tan. “Without them, they have fewer reasons to go to their city center. The activity of all the surrounding stores suffers from the drop in traffic.”
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To outdoor shopping centers
This movement was accelerated by the decision of many municipalities to limit access to their city centers to cars. “Local authorities have made parking expensive as they see it as an easy source of income in difficult times, while cities’ attempts to move towards zero-carbon neighborhoods have made it difficult to access.”points out Joshua Bamfield, director of the Center for Retail Research. “This deters many people from visiting city centers as regularly as before, especially with the disappearance of their flagship brands and secondary brands like Wilko, Bhs, Ted Baker or Paperchase”. Shoppers are turning to shopping centers created outside city centers, which have parking lots and many services, including cinemas and restaurants. Their businesses have suffered less in recent years and have even seen sales growth of 0.3% in 2023.
Oxford Street, however, has not given up. Its global reputation still attracts many tourists and remains a favorite place for the British. However, through the ongoing developments, a new trend is emerging. Demolished, the seven-storey building formerly occupied by Debenhams has been increased by two floors, but only the first three will be used by retail businesses, the upper floors will accommodate offices. Department store John Lewis has already launched work aimed at the same goal. Marks & Spencer obtained authorization this fall to completely rebuild its historic building to install a majority of offices there too. Finally, a museum has replaced the Zara store at number 248. To see if this diversification, which focuses more on experiences and offices, will benefit the retail trade.
