The high street death spiral continues, and the nation pins its hopes on a surprise new John Lewis boss

The only reason to bother to go into a shop in 2019 is to have an ‘experience’ – to feel the fabric or smell the perfume

How can Sharon White take the store through the turbulent waters ahead? (Ofcom)

Sharon White has been given an almost impossible task. On the day that the British high street declared its worst May sales ever, John Lewis announced that the ex-Ofcom chief exec was being handed its top job, making her the first black woman to run a large UK retail business.

Outgoing John Lewis chairman Sir Charles Mayfield admitted that White’s background made her appointment “an unconventional choice” (after leaving comprehensive school to read economics at Cambridge, she worked mostly in the public sector including at the Treasury, the Ministry of Justice and the British embassy in Washington). But these are desperate times for shop keepers as consumers increasingly prefer to purchase everything online.

The John Lewis group has been badly affected. Profits dipped by 45 per cent last year to just £160m. And John Lewis isn’t simply a retailer, it’s an iconic brand operating as Britain’s biggest worker-owned business with 400 shops. The 84,000 “partners” – as employees are known – share in the group’s profits. But last year saw annual bonuses slashed.

If John Lewis is fighting for survival because of the likes of Amazon and discount stores, then the future of every high street in Britain looks terribly bleak. With no growth recorded for the past 16 months, House of Fraser, Debenhams and LK Bennett have all been badly hit. Meanwhile, Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins, continues to fight for survival as some of their landlords are delaying the approval of a rescue plan.

But John Lewis has always been different. Unlike these retailers, from the moment you step into one of their stores, a unique culture is apparent. Staff are generally knowledgeable and helpful, many having worked in same department for decades. The staff (though not necessarily the merchandise) remain the group’s biggest assets, which is why the appointment of White could be inspired.

More than any other retailer, John Lewis has gone to enormous lengths to reflect multicultural Britain: 16 per cent of staff are black, Asian or minority ethnic. Many of them are over 50 – by which age age you’ve certainly acquired more genuine people skills than the average school leaver. All in all, it’s a million miles from the all-white world of department store comedy sitcom Are You Being Served? Just like Marks and Spencer, it must trade on being “ours”, and truly “British”.

How can White take the store through the turbulent waters ahead? The only reason to bother to go into a shop in 2019 is to have an “experience”. To feel the fabric you were thinking of buying for curtains; to look at a new range of bed linen and see if the touch justifies the cost; to ask someone in the cosmetics department about a particular colour foundation, or to smell a new perfume.

These are the all-important factors when making an expensive purchase if you don’t want to be disgruntled or disappointed.

I’ve lost count of the clothes I’ve sent back because the sizing was weird, the cut skimpy or the quality of the fabric flimsy: online shopping is a lottery for about half of all purchases. Of course there’s a counter argument that department stores now hold little stock of large goods like furniture and electronics and customers may still end up buying online or ordering and having to wait. But they will be doing so with real knowledge.

I want John Lewis to be the place to go for advice, for the people who can do small jobs around the house.

Most of us have no idea how to put up shelving, hang wallpaper, paint skirting boards, plumb a sink or hang curtains. In the food department, I’d love to see dishes of the day with all the ready ingredients sold in a pack, available as a pre-order too. I want a store butler to do all my shopping for me, and I don’t mind paying to have it waiting for me to take home. It would make sense for John Lewis to expand in this way.

As for the high street, aspiring Tory leader Matt Hancock wants to impose an increased “Amazon tax” on the big tech companies and scrap business rates for small retailers. A digital sales tax (announced in last year’s Budget) would not impact on the companies themselves, surely it would be passed on directly to consumers?

None of this sounds radical enough to save ailing retailers from closure. But in spite of all the gloom, small, specialised businesses in the UK are thriving. The luxury sector reports growth of 50 per cent in the last four years, contributing £48bn to the economy in 2017. Some of these businesses are online but the vast majority have small boutiques in premium locations. In a small town like Whitstable, for example, tourists flock to walk up and down a high street lined with small retailers.

We’ve bought into the big con that is shopping online, convincing ourselves we are so “busy” it is essential. It might work for toilet rolls, potatoes and basics, but if you want to stick to a list and a budget, inflict minimal environmental damage on the planet (less packaging, delivery vans emitting fumes and unnecessary purchases because items don’t live up to expectations) then simply take a deep breath and go into a shop. God knows the high street needs us to.