Retail Therapy Why The Retail Industry Is Broken – And What Can Be Done To Fix It, reviewed

By Simon Cocking, review of Retail Therapy, Why The Retail Industry Is Broken – And What Can Be Done To Fix It by Mark Pilkington. Available from Bloomsbury here. Paper back version, with new foreword now published.

Almost weekly, the news is full of stories about disappearing retail chains. From House of Fraser and BHS to Toys’R’Us and Sears, recognised names are vanishing overnight – as such large organizations disappear, so the malls, shopping centres, high streets and main streets become emptier and less appealing to visit.

The retail sector is hugely important in terms of job numbers: in the US, it employs around 30 million people (directly and indirectly); in the UK, around 10 million. As such, anything that jeopardises the retail sector will have a deep and lasting impact on millions of lives, as well as on public policy. While many blame the ‘Amazon effect’, this is an oversimplification. Deeper forces are at work that are changing people’s relationships with brands, the balance of power between producers and consumers, and the whole nature of the supply chain that has existed since the industrial revolution.

Retail Therapy offers a comprehensive analysis of these forces and their impact on the world of retailing. More importantly, it presents a cogent analysis of the longer term trends that are shaping retailing, and outlines a clear road map for sustainable success in the future.

Retail Therapy Why The Retail Industry Is Broken – And What Can Be Done To Fix It, reviewed

Written before covid-19, but with a foreword for the paperback edition that reflects the changed world we now live in. In many ways this books observations remain relevant and perhaps with added prescience considering what has played out over the last 6 – 9 months, and is clearly not done yet. Pilkington outlines major and serious trends in retail over the last few decades that spell major disruption for many long standing businesses. Only yesterday Brooks Brothers, 200 years in business, filed for bankruptcy.

Covid-19 will not drive all retail businesses to the wall, but if you do not have a clearly defined online strategy you are going to be in trouble. Pilkington discusses the mainly, but not only, US phenomenon of malls, and how they have already experienced a serious downturn, with at least 1/3rd of them already having uncertain futures. So much so that there is even a website deadmalls.com  now celebrating and documenting this growing trend. With six months of semi lockdown it is hard to see how they can open easily anytime soon, despite the sociopathic wishes of the orange one.

Pilkington provides plenty to think about and this is a useful and interesting book to be reading now as companies aim to navigate their financial future going forwards.

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