In Kingston Upon Thames the enormous and ever growing shopping high street, there has been a popular increase in short term high street stores coming and going. One in particular men’s ware ‘Madhouse’ was located by ‘Superdrug’ and only remained on the high street for just under a year and more recently two of these short term stores have opened ‘Hype’ replacing ‘Currys’ and ‘La Mode’ replacing ‘JJB Sport’. Is this just the opportunity for people to open their own stores before the recession truly ends and the price for renting the floor space shoots up to its original price? Or is it simply that these particular stores are popular with its daily changing stock with customers?

At first the stores attract some attention from the public, yet just a couple of weeks later the stores always seem to be abandoned as the excitement of the new store wears off with its all too similar stock to other short term stores, not to mention the clothing quality matching the price too frequently descending. Overall the atmosphere in these particular stores I myself have experienced is more so cold and uninviting the customer service also being dire with no more than two to four persons in the entire store. The layout of the store is also uninviting with its lack of organization and bare walls with marker pen signs taped to the rails.

So what is the deal with these stores? They all seem to sustain a cold atmosphere, poor quality customer service and clothing as well as strangely only appear to stay around for no more than a few months a year at the very the most. Are they just short term renting agreements or do these stores just build big intentions however, yet go bust in the first few months?

Kingston Upon Thames already has a much larger scale store just around the corner to uphold these particular standards on a much larger scale so could we please have some more stores that do not just attract ‘hoodies’ and innocent members of the public looking for a good product with a bargain price. Is there really any point in having stores that are a one minuet wonder and people often ask what’s that shop? As only a few months later ask again as another short term store has taken over.

As far as I’m concerned a half decent store upholds a constant high customer and quality service with a floor layout that attracts than turns away customers. Kingston Upon Thames did however start out with some more street performers from London but maybe the high street should introduce some more worth while stores and follow the success of larger scale stores from London to benefit both the customer and company.