The House of Fraser succumbs to the ever present competition from online retailing, planning on closing a little over 50% of its branch network in the next 12 months, to include the London Head Office. Around 6,000 jobs will be lost as a result, 2000 from HoF itself and a further 4,000 from the concessions operating within those stores.

Without this savage pruning there might not be a future for the chain, emphasising the problems even the best known brands are having when trying to make money with physical stores.

Few retailers can survive the low priced competition from the E-retailers with much lower overheads and staff numbers, without a serious and competitive online offer to bolt on to a stream lined and profitable network. Loss leader branches don't work anymore, they turn a profit or they are gone.

The older shopper might still like to look, feel and buy in a store but the younger generation, much more net savvy replacing them, don't have brand loyalty to the same degree, have huge price visibility available to them in a nano second and are unlikely to become a regular customer of any physical store.

Like it or not, that's the future.