Annie Gray begins the story of the High Street in the 1300's is in the aftermath of plague and famine, England is recovering economically, a whole host of new towns, or burgh's created a century before have been given the right to hold weekly markets. The market town is being born. Markets had of course existed prior to this time, held within monastic precincts, or more informally as trading fares in towns. The royal charters that gave a town the right to hold markets overseen by the local authority. These markets were a lot more chaotic and insanitary then we'd find acceptable today. Even in their time, people were unsure they were a good idea. They easily became places where criminality and prostitution happened. These markets were not just to sell food produce, but for more specialist trades such as haberdashery or bookselling. Overtime, those stalls that proved most popular would forsake their weekly market stall and open a permanent local shop. These were often nothing more than an open window or doorway onto the street, which may have produce hung around it. Product merchandising was in its infancy. People learned first hand what worked and what didn't.
Once you've opened a shop, things have not substantially changed in centuries. You always have to work hard to tempt people to cross your threshold. Giving good customer service has been a reliable way to create customer loyalty. Word quickly getting around through recommendation, as does a reputation for poor service or workmanship. One of the themes over the centuries has been for shops to become stockists or a mixture of products from across a wide spectrum of sectors. Any shop could develop into a place where you could find literally anything you might need. Hence the Bazaars, Emporiums, Hardware Stores. Department Stores, Shopping Malls, even the online retailers such as Amazon or Temu continue to trade on this. The one stop shop that becomes a timesaver.
Post the Second World War, a lot of traditional High Street properties were destroyed during the bombing of cities, so small independent initiatives, began taking over properties off the main street. Often dark damp cellars selling trendy clothes to a youth market that they knew would seek them out. These boutiques had their own unique counter cultural ambiance which more mainstream shops soon began to mimic. A good retailer has to be attentive to what is happening on the street, and be responsive to that. And the entrepreneurial pop up or start up store is one way to test the water and begin to make your mark.
Annie Gray, describes this broad sweep of several hundred years of development in the British High Street. She has a wonderful sense for the colours and smells of retailing as it develops into the highly competitive market place of today. Talking us for a stroll down a High Streets of York. London, Leeds or Brighton in different eras, to demonstrate the various trends in that period, and why they have emerged. Each new innovation appearing to provoke renewed consternation about the moral decline it might instigate, or the deleterious effect new more vigorous fashions might have upon more staid traditional retailing. Beneath a panoply of local initiatives such as Market Halls, Bazaars, Shopping Arcades, Victorian Covered Indoor Markets, Department Stores. Boutiques, Superstores, Supermarkets, Shopping Malls and out of town retail parks, we find the social and cultural trends that caused them to be created. Not all of them stood the test of time.
Some shops changed their target market, a toyshop, for instance, was once a shop solely for adults where you could discover all sorts of eccentric frippery, gadgets and other useless ephemera, only later does a toyshop become specifically aimed at children. Tentatively self service starts to be introduced, into an industry that had previously built and prided itself on offering personal attentive service. Modern customers, increasingly want to be left alone to buy without being hassled by sales assistants. Undoubtedly self service check outs in supermarkets has been driven more by the cost effectiveness of requiring less staff, than personal choice, and the jury is out on whether this impersonal way of processing purchasing will last. It maybe our alienated individualism will simply increase, until we find the nature of human interactions too taxing, and so avoid the cashier aisle altogether.
People have been calling the death knell of the High Street for decades. And certainly some once giant retail behemoths have fallen, but that could be to do with their slowness in adapting. Even in our internet age, some retail sectors remain remarkably resilient, where people still prefer to have a more hands on touchy feely relationship with what they buy. Retail has always gone through quite dramatic shifts that can be appear quite unpredictable. Who knows their maybe a revolt against the impersonal data reaping nature of online purchasing. The rise of the artisan and craft based shops maybe one symptom of our desire for the bespoke and unique returning. To live in a less mass produced, less monitored world.
Annie Gray's book provides an excellent and enjoyable overview of how shopping and the High Street has changed. How it both creates and follows the social trends of their times to this day.
CARROT REVIEW - 5/8
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