Retail slowdown or change in the market?

Taking a walk around the City lately (Or, as the owners and their maketing goons want to so lamely call it The Centre:MK) seems to be a fairly decent barometer of the retail situation in Britain right now.
A quick count of empty shop units reveals at least half a dozen scattered around the mall, all of which have closed down since the New Year and have yet to be taken on by other retailers.
One explanation for that could be the heavy rents charged by the malls management and owners which restricts the opportunities for smaller, independent retailers to move in.
Another is that consumers just don't have the disposable income to splash around anymore, although the success and growing profits of the supermarkets and chains like Primark suggests that consumers are still spending. Just not in the traditional way.
Perhaps it could be that the small-chain retailers who have been forced out were simply selling shit that no one wanted.
Past Times was one example of this. Situated at the quieter, posher end of the City, this store sold 'Christmas Gifts - From the glories of the Middle Ages and the 18th Century, to the exquisite refinement of Oriental Art'.
Why this company thought the modern city of MK with it's massive population of immigrants would be interested in purchasing over-priced, nostalgic bric-a-brac is beyond me. The fact that this store, along with others, closed down so quickly should be warning enough to others that in todays climate of increasing utility bills and council tax, and the increasing power of the supermarket behemoths and their cheap Asian-made goods, consumers are no longer willing to pay over the odds for novelties.
Or if they are, then it won't be in sufficient numbers to justify the expense of leasing expensive retail space and employing retail staff.
Perhaps the only way for these companies to survive (Other than not expanding in a head long rush and in doing so, ignore the traditional elements of capitalism) is to base themselves soley on the internet where overheads are low and the market is worldwide.
There is however, still hope for the small independent retailer in the City although they face an uphill struggle.
Tezco Ltd is probably one of the most popular stores in the mall because first of all, it's a store that offers goods and services that the local population actually want (Rather than the same old, identical crap seen in the big stores across the nation) and secondly, it sells them cheaply.
In the age of ebay, Amazon and other fantastic online retailers, Tezco competes on price,quality and range of goods, but it also offers something far more valuable in todays retail market place and something that the majority of British retailers are fucking hopeless at....great customer service.
Popping into the store to pick up something can soon turn into a pleasant hour spent talking to the owner or other customers.
Pretty standard stuff for customers in France no doubt or the smaller areas of Britain, but almost unheard of in large malls here. The fact that Faz, the owner, isn't from Britain and most of the customers are made up of the large numbers of foriegn immigrants to MK, may well play a massive part in that friendly atmosphere, as does the opportunity to haggle on price and recieve a personal service.
Contrast that to the stroppy service and fixed prices of the majority of Britains retail outlets and it isn't hard to see that Tezco will thrive.
If it isn't priced out of it's excellent central location first though. Faz tells me that the rent is horrifically high and the grand a month 'Service Charge' payable to the City's management gets him two bin bags a day left outside the store.
If Tezco survives, while the small-chains wither, then a sea change in the retail market might be on it's way and we could see the return of a butchers and similar to Central Milton Keynes (With the growing clamour of the public, partly thanks to the like of Jamies School Dinners, to buy decent meat and other foods rather than the mass produced stuff in the superarkets it shouldn't be too far off).
Let's hope great service wins and the market simply adjusts itself to serve changing consumer needs.