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Age. Sometimes having lots of it is good – think cheese, whiskey, doctors (no one wants a young doctor), and sometimes its bad – old cars, for example, are quite unreliable.
When it comes to retailing, I guess the jury is still out on whether age really matters; take Woolworths, 100 years of experience couldn’t save them. People were fond of them, sure, most of us had grown up stealing pick n mix from the local Woolies*, but fondness doesn’t pay the bills.
On the flip side there’s ASOS, just ten years old and turning over £165m. And catering to the most fickle market of them all; youth.
So, is it a big deal? Probably not to most. Knowing that Forfars has been baking since the 1500’s isn’t going to influence me when purchasing a pasty, and I won’t be going to D&A over Specsavers purely based on their ‘oldest opticians’ boasts, but it does provide some comfort to see ‘old faithfuls’ when visiting an unknown town or city.
I sometimes wonder if, in ten years’ time, there will be any grandma and grandad retailers left on the high street at all. As companies get taken over, department stores get purchased and renamed, and others simply fail to move with the times only to disappear, more of the old gets pushed out and more of the new comes stomping its big noisy neon feet in.
Life is moving quickly and trends have become fads – is the key to the future keeping things fresh and new, or will our inability to incubate brand loyalty encourage the manufacture of poor quality, throwaway products? And will we become ‘less British’?!
These things have to be considered. They should be considered. When you dismiss M&S as too ‘fuddy duddy’ and nip on over to Superdry, are you destroying English heritage or are you creating new?
I’m not sure, but I don’t see many retailers striving gain for loyalty; it seems like ‘sell, sell, sell’ to me, and to hell with longevity. Keeping things new and interesting isn’t bad, not at all, but it would be a shame to keep loosing traditions, bit by bit.
What do you think…? Comment below.
*Not me, of course, other miscreants
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