JB Beckett: Killing the high street one smile at a time?

The Amazon effect

As we emerge, stumbling and shaken from a two-year pandemic and socially-remote reality, what are the long-term Amazon effects on the way we shop, our high streets and retail businesses? And how are our portfolios playing a role?

Covid-19 arrived at a period of peak consumer apathy towards what internet shopping was doing to physical shopping. It had accelerated a secular trend to ‘click and drop', over the previous dominant form of ‘walk and shop'.  The stark truth is that it was not the lockdowns that were killing the high street; it was ourselves.  At time of writing the market capitalisation of Amazon was $3.2trn. In 2020 the UK's GDP was $2.7trn. Meanwhile, every region in the UK is full of small- and large-town neglected high streets. Much of which has a lot to do with Amazon.  Forbes recently reporte...