It is commonly assumed that women like nothing better than shopping. But this view may be not only misogynistic, it is often wrong: the new popularity of the malls of cyberspace is a reaction to the often-wretched experience of a visit to the precinct, to the high street or even to Bond Street.

Retailers who have billions invested in expensive high street and shopping centre premises should be alarmed at the public preference for the convenience of online buying over the opportunities for human congregation and aesthetic satisfaction offered by a store.

Au Bonheur des Dames, Émile Zola’s novel published in 1883, celebrates the thrill to the senses provided by a department store, the retailing innovation of that age. By contrast, the allure of the shopping website, the retail innovation of our age, can be summarised by reference to negatives: no crowds, no queues, no problem with parking and no embarrassment if the size 12 does not fit.

The frequent use of the phrase “retail therapy”, a linguistic leftover from the Eighties, seems to have persuaded store groups that purchasing must automatically be pleasurable for customers, however grim the surroundings and however inadequately the staff have been trained.

However, the recent success of John Lewis and Marks & Spencer has been built on a combination of attractively refurbished stores and properly informed assistants. Most of their rivals choose to overlook that other piece of Eighties’ speak – “retail is detail” – an acknowledgement that it is the little things that make the difference, such as ensuring that a sufficient number of tills are open at busy times.

Our expectations have become so low that when an assistant in the Oxford Street branch of Uniqlo said that she was sorry for keeping me waiting for three minutes at the checkout, I was startled, rather than seeing the apology as my fair due.

But Uniqlo, a division of Fast Retailing, the Japanese conglomerate, prefers not to follow the British shopkeeping model, in which the provision of a service is confused with the granting of a favour – and the atmosphere is almost unremittingly glum. For it is not only the availability of bargains that lures British shoppers out of their armchairs and off to the sales at this time of the year, it is also the rare chance for some fun, some competitive jostling around the “reduced” rails.

That we are reduced to getting our retailing kicks in this way proves that we are certainly not being served – at any time of year.

Times Recommends

• Minister in talks with Saudis to protect creditors
• Premier Inn hits back in £29-a-room row
• Bankers hit back at 'populist' bonus supertax