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Will January 2013 turn out to be a turning point for the high street? 

Many other industries and their customers have migrated from the high street to the internet – travel agents, insurance brokers, DVD rentals, and of course the retailers of standardised goods like electronics.

But property agents, by and large, have stayed put.

Some have of course tried to combine the two with an ‘invisible’ serviced office rather than a fully and expensively fitted high street office, and some, by using IT and a clever telephone system, have achieved some success with a network of home-based negotiators.

Yet these are the exceptions to the rule, and there has been no mass migration to an online model to anything like the degree seen in other industries.

But are we now at a turning point?

Will the recent spate of high-profile retail closures – Comet, Jessops, HMV, Blockbuster – mean the high street will see a further reduction in footfall, making it ever less attractive for those remaining there to continue the high costs associated with maintaining a brand presence on the high street?

And do these closures mark a further chipping away of people’s view that face-to-face is the only way, and that online is an acceptable way to do business – including the business of selling or letting a property?

Or will the current model continue to weather these internet storms, with agency brands remaining a staple of the high street?

Will agents continue to believe that, knowing they need a local presence, they may as well wear the additional cost of a high street office, for all the brand recognition it delivers them?

Thoughts welcome!

Charlie Snell

The Marketing Business

www.twitter.com/mktgbusiness

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