• While the High Street takes its dinner early, a third of online sales happen after 6pm
• Town and city centre footfall fell by 26% between 2007 and 2013 while all real non-food retail growth since 2001 took place online
• National retailers such as Halfords, Argos and Tesco Direct see over half of online orders collected in store

It’s official, the boundaries of retail are blurring so IMRG has taken the opportunity to explore the relationship between online and bricks-and-mortar in a new report entitled 'A Tale of Two City Centres'.
They say it is the worst of times for the High Street, and the best of times for consumers - as up to 25,000 High Street stores are estimated to have closed between 2000 and 2011, while Amazon powers ahead based on its strategy of focusing on 'selection, price and convenience'.

Is this then just another tale of traditional retail being swept away in an Amazon flood? The report's author, Independent Multi-Channel Retail Consultant Chris Jones, argues that the story is not that simple.

Although an estimated 21% of all UK retail is now being conducted online, many retailers with national store networks are seeing over half of these orders collected in their shops - and customers shopping for additional unplanned items while they are in-store.

'Always open, always available, always informed'

Chris said: "The relationship between e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar stores is all too often painted as a kind of zero-sum game. However today's consumers want online and offline channels to collaborate, not compete, to deliver the 'always open, always available, always informed' shopping experience they expect.

"What's particularly challenging for retailers trying to meet this need is the ever-increasing pace at which best-practice has to be re-invented to adjust to this new consumer expectation. This report highlights the key challenges and, making particular use of IMRG's extensive database of stats and facts, shows why they matter."

Meanwhile, over 27% of online sales took place on a tablet in Q1 2014, marking yet another overnight revolution in the way we like to shop (the first Apple iPad was only launched in April 2010) and with which retailers now need to cope.

The full report is an essential exploration of the collaboration and competition between click and bricks, and is downloadable for members from the IMRG website here.

 About the Author

Chris Jones is a leading freelance multichannel retail consultant. He is the author of The Multichannel Retail Handbook - a guide to planning, implementation, operation and enhancement.

Chris offers advice/consulting, interim management and programme management, at senior levels, in the areas of multichannel/digital retail strategy, multichannel customer proposition and differentiation, the IT consequences of it all, and also more general IT strategy.

A Tale of Two City Centres is available to IMRG members to download for free from the IMRG website  here.