Bev Malik Our Retail And Buying Director, On House of Fraser Calling In The Creditors Today.

As House of Fraser called in the creditors this morning, unable to reach a deal with prospective buyers, we asked Bev Malik, our Retail and Buying Director, her thoughts on this. "Established in 1849 in Glasgow as Arthur and Fraser, house of Fraser has been an intrinsic part of the retail landscape in the United Kingdom. The demise of this one time giant of the high street is sad but somewhat understandable as the brand has not been able to find relevance in the drift from brick and mortar to omniretail, it’s also struggled to tap into growing markets without isolating its base consumer. Retail and the uk will ultimately bounce back but we as other countries are having an identity crisis in our department store models, that rapidly needs to be updated."

If House of Fraser closes, we will lose 17,000 jobs across their high street operation and logistics services. This week New Look also announced they are looking to restructure and close shops, with a loss of 900 jobs. It is worth noting that Amazon pay in tax half what House of Fraser pay in rent on their stores in the UK. While we address the online and bricks and mortar shifts to consumer demand, we need to not only address the experiential wishes of the customer, as well as vast costs differentials of running retail on and offline.