00:00Jasmine Bertels is a consumer expert and business commentator. Great to have you back on Global Business Europe.
00:06Look, this has been long disputed, long planned, and now it's happening.
00:11The mayor says this ends the streets decline, does it?
00:14Well, I hope so, because he's right. Oxford Street has been in decline for some time.
00:20It's been quite a sad place to walk down, certainly to be going down in a bus.
00:25You look on either side and there are empty shops or there are shops full of tourist rubbish.
00:30And this once great street, and it still has a good name. Oxford Street, London is still a good name.
00:37But this once great street has been really quite sad.
00:41So something quite radical needed to be done.
00:44And it does sound like a reasonable move in many ways to pedestrianise and turn it into an experiential space.
00:53Yeah. But nearly a third of everything that British shoppers buy is now bought online.
00:58That's up from about a fifth from before the pandemic.
01:00Can any street, however it's designed, win that spending back?
01:05Well, it can win some of it back. Certainly some of it isn't going to move.
01:09People like to buy things in their pyjamas.
01:11There are things like, you know, cat food or fairy liquid or whatever that why bother going to the shops
01:19for?
01:19But there are lots of things that it's nice to to browse on homeware, fashion, tech.
01:27You know, the Apple store has done very well with experiential shopping.
01:32People enjoy going there. They stay there for quite a while.
01:34They have classes, etc.
01:36And people do enjoy going out and experiencing, you know, dining outside or inside and maybe a little bit of
01:45shopping, a little bit of browsing with it.
01:47So I think that taking a new approach to it, where it's a mixed approach where you have dining, you
01:55have experiences.
01:56Maybe they'll put a museum in there somewhere or something, you know, some sort of activity for the children as
02:02well as actual shopping.
02:04Then it could work and it could become a family destination, certainly a tourist destination.
02:08I'm thinking about the shops, the retailers, you know, Paris and Milan still give tourists their sales tax back.
02:15London stopped doing that in 2021.
02:17Do you think that the chancellor, the UK's finance minister, should could bring that back in Wednesday's budget?
02:23I think he should.
02:25Whether he will is a whole other thing, because this government likes to spend and tax.
02:29So it's it's almost impossible.
02:33It's sort of against their religion almost, you know, to to cut taxes.
02:37But I think it would help.
02:39I think the the figures would show that there would be much more tourist shopping and also tourism generally, just
02:46tourists coming over if they knew that they could actually get some money off.
02:50I mean, who wouldn't?
02:51As you say, Paris and Milan do it.
02:53London should do it as well.
02:54Well, how and when will we know whether this is actually working for the shops, for the businesses that line
03:02Oxford Street?
03:03Oh, that's a good question.
03:05That's a very good question.
03:06They've opened it now specifically for Christmas.
03:09I think we could tell around Christmas, after Christmas, if it has worked.
03:14Of course, these sort of things, they really need a year or two.
03:19I would say probably two years to really bed in.
03:22But I think by Christmas, we should see if the idea is attractive to people.
03:27If people do come and sit, if they come and browse, if they come and just look and take photographs,
03:33we'll we'll tell on social media if it works.
03:35I think if they're taking lots of photographs and videos of themselves in the new precinct that is going to
03:41be Oxford Street, if it has worked, if it's taken the shopper's imagination.
03:47But really, properly speaking, I think a couple of years.
03:51Jasmine, I think I'll meet you there.
03:52Very big thanks.
03:53Yes, why not?
03:54Jasmine Bertels, thank you.
