Almost Half Of Shoppers Find Slow Pace Of High Street Biggest Bugbear

Almost half of UK shoppers find the slow pace of high streets their biggest bugbears, according to a survey carried out by Argos.

31% of pavement hoggers and 27% of dawdling pedestrians are not the only factors that Britons have to contend with whilst on the high street.

The nation's top ten shopping bugbears include:

• Pavement hoggers

• Dawdling pedestrians

• Battling through crowds

• Carrying heavy shopping bags

• Middle of the street chattering

• People checking their phones

• Traffic dodging

• Navigating huge stores

• Waiting in queues

• Rude staff

The trial comes a month after Argos launched the first nationwide same-day Fast Track delivery and in as little as 60 seconds in-store collection services to speed up shopping for the nation.

Set in the middle of Liverpool One, shoppers will be testing out the experimental pavement fast lane for one week only from yesterday, Monday 02 until Sunday 08 November.

Independent retail expert Dr Alastair Moore said: "Perusing the high street is one of my favourite past times but I do have my own shopping bugbears, from middle of the street chattering to battling through the crowds. As the research demonstrates, a faster high street could vastly improve the overall shopping experience for British shoppers across the UK. The pedestrianised 'Fast Track' lane is a great way of making this possible and with nearly 30 million Brits saying they’d like one on their own high street, the pilot is set to be a success."

(CD/LM)