What does your high street look like?

JustKeepSwimming_2

Visited a friend in Chippenham today for the first time this year. The high street is looking sad as Woolies was the largest shop. Also have an Officers Club that is going, a sports shop has closed, & a greengrocers that has relocated but left their original shop empty. In their indoor centre an independent bakers has gone, as has a travel agent, lingerie shop & cheap pound type store, possibly due to high rents. Further down the high street a charity shop has actually closed down, & near my friend's house (15 mins from town) a sign shop has folded, along with a nail bar & an off licence. Things must be getting bad if the nail bar has gone - it was always packed (for reasons which will always escape me :rolleyes:)

Two local pubs are also looking for tenants, & a third (excellent) pub has taken to closing during the week.What little "industry" has either already gone, or is cutting jobs...

fc123

fc123 wrote: »

There are quite a few To Let boards up at the mo (incl me..except my board isn't up yet), but not really more than normal...if I am honest.

Got that wrong.

Last week loads of shops came onto the market in my immediate area.....really good ones too. I have traded there nearly 11 years and never has there been so many good quality units up to let at one time.

Most are still occupied and one has just lost her rent review (really sound business with other outlets) and is up to let like me. Unfortunately, her rent increase has put the final nail into our coffin RealLife Land shop wise.

We always have a constant turnover of small stuff taken on by newbie retailers, most shut after a year or 2 though.

North Laine were talking it up that new small, indie retailers are taking on leases (redundant with a pay off?) from long established shops that were lucky enough to reassign their leases.

A well known juice bar is going..after arriving 3 years ago and being filmed on Channel 4 trouble at top type programme.
They signed for too much rent and pushed 4 rent reviews through the roof for long standing indie traders nearby, 2 have shut since.....and now they have gone back to their former careers (well paid) after giving it a go.

I reckon we won't be able to re-assign our lease now...I have feeling about it....so we have to plan accordingly.

davsidipp

the rents are crazy around north laine we looked at those a few months ago and changed our mind.good area but you have to take quite a lot of money to make it viable.me thinks if landlords dont drop their prices they will have empty units for years.

iltisman

A few of my chums in the pub started started playing bankruptcy bingo I need WH Smith to go and I win. (unless the pub goes first)

fc123

davsidipp wrote: »

the rents are crazy around north laine we looked at those a few months ago and changed our mind.good area but you have to take quite a lot of money to make it viable.me thinks if landlords dont drop their prices they will have empty units for years.

What a lot of newbie retailers don't get is that North Laine and The lanes are really part of a Brighton theme park. The one that vistors want to see and experience.
We all have a small amount of local trade but the population is only about 285,000 plus the biggest demographic is 65+ (which surprised me when I found that out) and most local serious spend is done in Churchill Sq and Western Rd.

An indie retailer needs to T/O roughly 10 X rent to tick over on average indie margin. A lot miscalculate how much they need to really turnover.
See a cute premises @ £20k pa. Think of it in terms of £400 pwk and guess that they only need to T/O about £1700 pwk.

They actually need to rake in at least 200k pa just to keep their heads above water.

We have run largish niche boutiques for 20 years and every time the T/O was 10 times rent, we did fine.

Our peak month of the year is July (not a good month for similar type business in London say) and, Jan - March are just written off...always trade at a large loss. We always worked out things on 9 month costs....not 12.

If more newbies did that before they signed their lives away on a lease, they would negotiate the rents down....but it only takes one to muck up a whole St...coming in and paying top whack.


It's the above sum that has decided what we are going to do next.
Dead horses and flogging are no longer my thing.


TBH, a lot (in my sector) that do well have a sizable wholesale arm of their own products, excellent internet site and websales.....the actual cutesy shops are almost incidental in their whole business.


My business is in a different situation and is at a crossroads on which way to take it so our decsisions are based different set of circumstances.

JFC_2

I live in Crawley and was saddened by the dissappearance of the Disney Shop. My 13 year old daughter collects eeyores and it used to be part of our shopping ritual to pop in and take a look at the latest limited edition eeyores...:(

I must confess I have taken to shopping online (Amazon, Play.com, etc) more and more. I dont drive and that means no heavy bags but we did used to like pootling around the Disney store.

I hope Waterstones is safe...thats our other sacred place. We pop in for our coffees in the upstairs coffee shop and then spend ages looking for a good book or 2...

Does anyone know if there are any other shops on the hit list in Crawley in the coming months?

JFC_2

Im new here by the way, this place is very busy isnt it?

bo_drinker

Slightly off the beaten track the boards are going up on the businesses that have closed recently, a large car showroom and Charlie Browns accessory shop. A nice ready made blank canvas for graffiti. Wait and see.

JFC_2

was it a mini car showroom?

I love minis, if I could afford one that would be the car of my choice, its so sad that they are on the slide but then so are a lot of firms at the moment.

bo_drinker

No Citroen/ Nissan I think. Wessex garages ??? And Motor world have gone.