I was thinking about this yesterday. I went to my local big electrical store (Currys - PC World) in London, literally half a mile from my house to buy a 64GB Ipad Mini with Wi Fi + Cellular. £529 worth and i walked into the store knowing exactly what i wanted. Stood around the Apple area for about 10 mins and no one came near me. Walked over to a guy at a till and asked him to check availability for me and he said he was busy (not with a customer) and someone else had gone to check ipad mini stock. I waited around for 5-10 mins and asked the same guy again and he said he'd go find the guy who went to check. He never came back and i left.

It got me thinking. Here in the UK John Lewis is a big premium retailer with huge department stores all over the country. They are well run, have fantastic staff and are doing very well in these bad economic times. Waitrose, who are owned by John Lewis and the most expensive larger supermarket chain is also Britain's fastest growing supermarket chain.

So maybe it's not the economic climate, maybe it's bad management, terrible staff and customer service and these 'high street' stores such as Woolworths, HMV, Jessops etc are simply being culled because they failed to adapt and offer customers what they really want.

If thats the case then great. I think a massive correction is coming with regards to bricks and mortar retail stores. Rents, business rates etc are all going to have to come down or we will see ghost towns in most major towns and cities in the UK. Which means the high street will eventually come back. People will always want to go out and purchase goods in a shop instantly. It's just the costs need to come down massively and then the retailer needs to offer products customers want with excellent customer service and support.

If this correction does happen, which it has to, i'll certainly be looking to setup some retail stores for my LED Lighting products.