WH Smith has no plans to grow ‘healthy’ high street presence as it eyes airports instead
WH Smith boss said the retailer has no plans to open any additional high street stores but is focusing on growing its transport hub and international presence.
“We’ve got a very healthy High Street business in the UK”, Carl Cowling told the BBC, “but we’ve got no ambitions to grow that”.
“When you look at the main cities across England, Wales and Scotland, we are present in those cities,” Cowling said, adding that any more UK high street stores would be a “duplication” of the 550 ones they currently own.
The books and stationary retailer is instead looking to expand its real estate portfolio in airports, train stations, and internationally, in the US and Europe.
WH Smith say they currently have over 800 travel stores at airports, train stations, hospitals, workplaces and motorway services.
Kate Hardcastle, chief of retail insights agency, Insight with Passion, told the BBC that airports and service stations represent a “golden opportunity” for WH Smith as more increasingly travel with their technology “essentials”.
“A retailer like WH Smith is going to see the value in investing and building a new captive airport audience than a challenged high street”, Hardcastle said.
In 2018 and 2019, WH Smith acquired airport staples InMotion and Marshall Retail Group respectively.
The US is WH Smith’s largest opportunity for expansion – it has 12 per cent of US airport retail market, according to Cowling.
“Our ambition is to get to 20 per cent over the course of the next four years and then that will mean probably only the best parts of 150 stores,” he said.
While WH Smith plans to spend roughly £120m opening US and European stores this year, it will continue investment in its UK business.
At the start of June, WH Smith announced a partnership with Toys ‘R’ Us in nine of their UK shops as the bankrupt children’s toy store makes a high street come back.
This comes after hundreds of businesses including high-street heavyweights WH Smith, M&S and Argos were named and shamed after being fined for failing to pay workers the minimum wage.
WH Smith were contacted for comment.