my friend Alex in Shanghai, hasmised a very important point.

I understand if £25 is spent, you have free delivery. With trafic congestion and petrol costs, the long term is more than likely going to be internet purchase for the free costs involved in purchase that is going to be the normal transaction in the future,, with a store being turned over to more leisure related concepts ie cafe, cinema,

but then it might in 20 years be possible to turn a store into a housing estate,,imagine when in 10 years Sainsburys and Asda or something similar become a takeover / merger,,,,,,,,just for real estate

it always pays to look at the future ,, have a look at walmart website,,,this is always the future

Nicholas Iles, Oswestry, Shropshire

It is interesting that traditional bricks and mortar firms are finally combining their online offer with their retail site presence. There is a lot of evidence that multi-channel selling is much more successful for both customer retention and customer spend. We are likely to see more of these type of developments over the coming years. This is going to be a threat to the traditional e-commerce heavyweights who, without access to other channels will have trouble creating an all encompassing/engrossing customer experience.

It seems that high street retail is here to stay for a long time to come.

Alex, Shanghai,