shuttered shops
towns dying from the inside jobs
destroyed
communities torn apart are you scared
about the future of your high streets
could you lose out
on the products you love might your town
or city change beyond recognition
will you all the people you care about
soon be out of a job
ever since the first online shopping
boom of the late 1990s
brick and mortar retail has been on a
long slow and probably
inevitable slide towards its death and
we're constantly told we should be
terrified
of the oncoming retail apocalypse
politicians never lose the opportunity
to stand up for the high street
old-school business leaders give stony
face warnings about the future of their
stores
and as shops close and transport shuts
down in the coronavirus pandemic
the warnings and the desperate calls for
the government to do something
came faster and faster but what if i was
to tell you
that that fear is only holding us back
holding our politicians back from
thinking about a future that's best for
all of us
not just big businesses holding the
market back
from bold new ideas that can make our
lives richer and better
holding you back from that kind of
innovative thinking that you'll need if
you're going to get rich
because the truth is brick and mortar
retail
is dying and in this video you'll learn
why
why the high street as you know is a
lost cause why even untouchable
retailers like primark are going to go
under but you'll also learn why this
isn't
actually the apocalypse it's a chance
for new birth
brick and mortar retail has always been
the favorite child of the politicians
and until recently
big business too e-commerce has been the
black sheep of the family
but if you can break free of the mindset
of the old retailers and the politicians
if you can let go of a dead vision of
the high street
you can open up the path to creating an
amazing new future for everybody
and a whole lot of success for yourself
keep watching to find out how
thank you for coming i'll see you in
hell
part one overconfident and uninspired
the story of hmv firstly i want you to
join me on a journey back to the 1980s
madonna's dominating the charts it's
illegal to go out without shoulder pads
and british business is on steroids as
the economy booms
and one business that's riding the wave
is the titan of the high street
hmv now in the old days if you wanted a
game or a movie or a record you couldn't
stream it
you couldn't even order it on amazon you
had to go to an actual
shop how incredibly exhausting
if you lived in the uk chances are the
shop was hmv
which dominated music and later other
entertainment retail in britain
throughout much of the late 20th century
but through the naughties in the 2010s
hmv struggled and ultimately fell
with people increasingly looking online
for their music
the brick and mortar retailer couldn't
keep up
in this part of the video i'm going to
show you how hmv's rise was driven by
technology driven
innovations but its demise was caused by
the exact
same thing and by the end of this
section you'll understand why the
mightiest brick and mortar stores
can crumble when they take their eye off
the ball
now hmv was founded in 1921 and it
enjoyed several periods of big
success and growth but the 1980s was
when it really sought off
rival record store chains by latching
itself to the success of an existing new
technology
the compact disk or cd the biggest
revolution in the recording industry
since the invention
of the long playing gramophone record
now for my younger viewers remember
those ancient cds is probably still in
your dad's car
once they were a cutting-edge
entertainment trend like the ipod in the
naughties or spotify in the 2010s
people were willing to pay big money for
them and hmv
ensured that it was the go-to place to
spend that money
with a big fat profit margin on top
that was the one thing that hmv got
right it was willing to go
all in on this cool new tech and it
dominated
as a result and it had to think big
bold and innovative to do this it
pioneered celebrity
in-store appearances to make itself into
a destination for shoppers
paul mccartney michael jackson madonna
david bowie and kate bush all turned up
to play gigs and signed cds
that kind of celebrity cameo was really
rare before hmv
made it a thing but in the late 90s and
early naughties there was a new threat
around
it was called the internet
amazon started selling cds in 1998
in 2003 the apple itunes store opened to
let you legally download songs
and for years previously the popularity
of sites like napster
or limewire had showed a clear demand
for quick digital
content all of this should have been no
sweat for hmv
the innovative business that spotted and
latched onto the rise of the cd
should have had no problem shifting to
this new reality
if you thought that you'd be wrong
in 2002 hmv's ad agency warned the
company's managing director
that the two of his biggest threats were
downloadable music and online retailers
his response according to one of the
guys working at the agency
he said i've never heard so much rubbish
and that's the one big thing hmv got
wrong
because it got lazy and overconfident it
missed the big technology trend of this
century
from there it was all downhill nowadays
you can still find a few hmv shops but
the company entered administration
twice once in 2013 and once in 2018
it's pretty much certain that it'll
never enjoy a major success again
and here's the thing hmv didn't just
lose out for itself
it also missed out on the chance to make
your life and my life better
it missed out on that kind of innovation
that amazon apple
spotify and more embraced in order to
bring more music
into our lives more quickly
the krusty krab come spend your money
here part two sinking the unsinkable
primark is next
fast forward back to the present day and
the preacher is pretty different to how
it was in the early noughties
nobody would dismiss online shopping as
rubbish about 10 of all retail sales
were online as of 2019
and with stores closing for lockdowns
across the world the figure for 2020
will probably be
much bigger but people still can't quite
believe that the high street
doom is inevitable and often one name
they hold up is the budget
clothing retailer primark i'm going to
explain why they're wrong
and what's more i'm going to tell you
why it's actually a good thing
primark is a champion compared to the
other brick and mortar retailers
during 2019 its profits rose by eight
percent year on year
so what's its secret it's not cool it
isn't beautiful
but it is very very cheap
unlike hmv where even back in the 1980s
people forked out 16 or 17 pounds for a
cd
at primark you can pick up a huge basket
at the door and stuff clothes into it
often for just a few pounds each now
there's lots of reasons why primark is
able to keep its prices low
it doesn't do much advertising only buy
stock that it thinks it can sell and
once it's gone it's gone
but one of the reasons why it's so cheap
is it doesn't sell online
that means it doesn't have to invest in
all the complex and expensive systems
and processes that come with an online
arm now
maybe that sounds smart primark is
selling only in brick and mortar stores
because that's what it knows
while its high street competitors try to
focus online and offline at once
but the onward march of technology is
like gravity
you cannot escape it forever primark can
become more and more dominant
on the brick and mortar high street but
that won't save it
when the brick and mortar high street is
dying overall
if you look at primark's success in 2019
those big new profits were driven by
aggressive expansion into new locations
its year-on-year sales at existing
established stores
were actually down plus of course the
brick and mortar high street
is now vulnerable to shocks anyone
remember
that little thing called coronavirus you
must
stay at home during the depths of the
lockdown in the uk where shops were
forced to close their doors
to stop the virus spreading primark
sales were
zero literally zero
perhaps the world will never see another
pandemic like that in our lifetime
but even if that were the case lockdown
was basically a very extreme version of
a basic
reality for brick and mortar stores to
make money
people have to be able to move about
that's why
even when the weather is unusually bad
sales go down
online retailers don't have that problem
so primark at the end of the day
is just another hmv it's winning the
retail game with the existing rules in
the physical world
but the game is changing and primark
can't stop it if it doesn't start
learning the new rules
it's gonna lose badly now this is bad
news right
who doesn't like cheap clothes i'd argue
that's not the case
if cheap clothes are what you want newer
online only fast fashion brands like
boohoo
are able to respond to changes even
faster than primark
to get what you want for example while
primark was doing precisely nothing
during lockdown
boohoo was bringing customers cheap
pyjamas and leisurewear
for those hours that they were spending
lying around the house
part three a new birth life
after the retail apocalypse
picture a new kind of town center
instead of bland
chain shops you've got houses parks
schools local stores have their place
but so does leisure community and
friendship
in this section i'm going to show you
that this doesn't have to be just a
fantasy
because boohoo's cheap leisurewear
during lockdown is just one
example why online can win over brick
and mortar retail
i'm going to explain why shoppers will
win out in the current changes to retail
but more than that i'm going to explain
why a new future for the high street is
actually better for society too
like a phoenix rising harry potter style
from the ashes
the key point it's all about innovation
innovation is what makes successful new
ecommerce businesses stand out
and that's good for those businesses but
it's also good for consumers
unlike hmv clinging to the cd or primark
sticking to its budget stores
big online retailers like amazon are
always moving fast
and changing the game if we take amazon
and compare it to walmart which does
sell online
but it still has brick and mortar stores
in its dna
if you live in the us walmart has
brought you cheap groceries
and other goods and that's not for
nothing but amazon has brought
you access to products you once could
barely have access
amazon has pioneered the way we read
books
through amazon's web services it's
helped a range of tech companies
and even governments provide online
services you might think these companies
are too big
and i discuss this in one of my other
videos on amazon
but i'd pick amazon over a big and
boring company like walmart any day
meanwhile some people argue that
whatever the benefit to consumers
the death of brick and mortar retail
means the death of high streets and town
centres
the destruction of jobs the loss of
community
but that's not the case there again a
lack of innovation is
just holding us back a new report by the
british think tank
called the social market foundation
reveals if politicians
would just stop trying to save dead high
streets with old-fashioned policies
they could convert the space that's
being used for doomed retail
into 800 000 new homes across the uk
and that could come alongside new parks
and community spaces
plus of course building that many homes
creates plenty of good
worthwhile jobs so when you hear about
people
warning about the retail apocalypse and
how if more stores go under we're all
doomed
don't think like hmv don't think like
primark
don't think like the politicians
instead think like jeff bezos elon musk
or steve jobs
think about building something totally
new and not hanging on to the old
and that's the key to improving people's
lives
and the key to improving society and
it's the key to not only getting rich
but staying at the top of your game too
