After online shopping, your high street store needs YOU

Inside the Amazon warehouse

Even the box of tangerines that is now almost finished (or were they satsumas, I can never tell the difference) was purchased on my laptop while watching Homes Under the Hammer re-runs.

I did venture into Princes Street a few times, but only to collect items I had ordered online. I didn’t bother going as far as St James Quarter, even though John Lewis is the star attraction. It was just so much easier and far more comfortable to scroll through my phone looking for the perfect gift for a Stoke City fan.

It seems I was not alone. The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) revealed a few days ago that the overall footfall in Scotland’s shops during December fell by 1.5 per cent compared to the same period in 2023. Even Edinburgh, which has the best range of shops in the whole country, suffered a drop of 1.1 per cent. Little wonder the SRC director David Lonsdale described the figures as “dreich” for retailers with bricks and mortar premises.

These days, it seems we want our high streets to be full of coffee shops, bars and cafes. I must admit that I found myself on at least one occasion recently sitting in Starbucks in Princes Street, ordering Christmas goodies online while sipping a double espresso. I have even confined my traditional post-Christmas sales shopping to online. And I have to admit, I didn’t miss the unseemly scrabble in Marks & Spencer to find the perfect pair of trousers marked down by 50 per cent.

Does it matter that we now prefer digital shopping to doing it in real life? Yes, of course it does. The growth in e-commerce might create jobs for delivery drivers, but reduces the number of shop staff. And there is nothing more depressing than a row of empty shop fronts in once-bustling high streets. You can’t turn back the clock, but unless we want shops to disappear completely, we need to use them.