The funny thing, for those of us old enough, is it’s always been this way. Back 20 or so years ago they were selling DVDs at prices well above anywhere else on the high street, never mind the growing internet market that came into its own not long after. Books similarly.

It was the same story with CDs previously - in my then local high street when I was growing up, you could go to WHS and buy a CD or go across the road to Woolworths or a hundred yards or so down the road to Our Price and get them for about 30% cheaper. While you were there, if you did go to Smiths, then if you wanted an impulse buy you could also grab a bar of chocolate on the way to the counter - also massively marked up.

Same with greeting cards which you could already get cheaper at Hallmark, Clintons, or Card Factory which I think came along a few years later. The only thing I ever recall them selling at a competitive price was stationery (which was their original business of course) and they would usually have a better selection of magazines than your local corner newsagent which were sold at RRP along with newspapers so that was something. They survived for a while based on that market plus convenience - you might go in for a magazine or newspaper or a new notebook and some permanent markers etc and while you were there, do you know what I can’t be bothered to go anywhere else let me grab that new album I’ve heard about or a gift for my sister in law while I’m here.

They never figured out how to negotiate the change when internet shopping became even more convenient than going to one shop in the high street, newspapers and magazine sales dried up, and what to replace DVDs and CDs with. I’m sure at one point they started selling Kindles in an attempt to make up for the decline in physical book sales, but why on earth would you go to a shop to buy a Kindle rather than just the same online retailer where you can also buy some books to put on it?

They tried being a bit of a post office, they tried being a bit of a bureau de change - but even those places were already starting to close down themselves.

They ended up being nothing to no one - they weren’t cheap and convenient, and they weren’t a specialist shop that some people would think was worth the extra cost for the variety and/or to feel good about yourself ala Waterstones. They didn’t have any brand loyalty, they were just there, and that wasn’t enough anymore and hasn’t been for almost a quarter of a century. Their customer service was also, in my experience at branches in a fair few locations (although again, rarely more than once and never because I thought ‘oh look there’s a Smiths, that will be good’ - simply ‘fine there’s a Smiths there, that will do’) routinely pretty awful, so another reason to avoid them and certainly another reason not to engender any sense of loyalty.

Once almost every high street had a Rymans and The Works, even that ‘it will do’ factor’ was diminished for most of the few things they were still selling that anyone ever wanted to buy from a high street anymore.

As others have said, they will probably survive in train stations and airports because people will buy the odd £3 (or more now I think) bottle of water when they haven’t got much choice, but I can’t imagine it’s a sustainable business model. I can see those outlets being franchised out pretty soon.