High street ‘digital dinosaurs’ left behind by digital age

According to the payments processor, small and independent stores are seeing year on year growth of up to 8 percent by allowing customers to browse and purchase online as well as in-store.

By contrast their bricks and mortar only peers have seen their revenues shrink in the same period.

Among the sectors benefiting most from investing in new technology:

• Florists that provide customers a mix of online and in-store shopping options have grown 8.34 percent in the past year, while bricks and mortar only stores whose have seen revenues decline by 0.41 percent.
• Bakers and cake shops that make it easy to order from them online have added 8.70 percent to their bottom line. Those that don’t have seen revenues flat-line.

Ecommerce sales have certainly played a part in fuelling this growth, but the story does not end there.

In-store sales among these more digitally enabled businesses grew at a far faster rate (+2.06 percent) than their bricks and mortar only counterparts (-0.09 percent).

James Frost, UK CMO, Worldpay, said: “Far from killing off traditional high-street businesses, easy access to technologies like ecommerce is helping small business owners to reinvent their relationship with customers by being more flexible to their needs.

“UK shoppers still love heading to the high street, but it is not always practical, possible or convenient to do so. It’s fantastic when a regular customer pops in to see you for some advice, but our data shows that real loyalty stems from giving customers a choice.”

James Frost added: “Tougher trading conditions emerging over recent months have exposed a growing gap between the high-street’s digital ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. When times are tough, it can be difficult for bricks and mortar businesses to do much to open up new revenue streams.

“Businesses that also sell online are finding they have far more options to off-set any downturn in spending among their local customer base by targeting shoppers further afield, including abroad.”