Following the recent collapse of Austin Reed and BHS, retail expert and GVC member Pamela Robinson was busy in the media last week discussing what is happening to British High Street Fashion retailers.
In April 2016 high street retailer BHS went into administration, just a year after it was sold by Sir Philip Green for one pound. In the last week the decision was taken to liquidate the chain with all 163 stores set to close. This decision followed the recent collapse of menswear chain Austin Reed and together with BHS a total of 12,000 jobs are expected to be lost.
Dr Pamela Robinson is an expert in retail within the GVC Research Cluster at Birmingham Business School. She spent 14 years working in management at Tesco before advising retailers around the world. In the last week Pam has conducted 9 local radio interviews, as well as spots on BBC Radio Coventry, Warwickshire and Victoria Derbyshire and appeared on BBC News 24 on Friday 3 June. This flurry of media activity saw her lend her expert opinion on the collapse of BHS, what went wrong and what the future holds for high street retailers in Britain in the face of intense competition from their online counterparts.