A STRIKING image doing the rounds last weekend showed a deserted Buchanan Street in Glasgow city centre, and it offered a grim portent of hard times to come.

Usually, with a month to go before Christmas, this retail scene would be bustling with shoppers. The tills would be ringing sweetly as people snap up presents for friends and family, and the bars and restaurants would buzz with anticipation and cheer. People would just be happy to be in town, enjoying the lights and soaking up the festive atmosphere.

This year, of course, things could not be more different. With Glasgow stuck in tier four of Scotland’s lockdown system and non-essential retail outlets (not to mention hospitality venues) banned from trading until December 11 at the earliest, it is shaping up to be the toughest Christmas retailers in the city will ever face.

Even if Glasgow moves into tier three at the end of next week, it would leave just 13 days for businesses to salvage the scraps from what is usually their most lucrative time of the year.

Of course, not every part of Scotland is in tier four, and the shops are still open for business in the likes of Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen. But even in areas where retailers are open, continuing restrictions mean it is far from business as normal.

There will be many consumers who, fearful of contracting coronavirus despite the extensive safety measures in place, will prefer to do their Christmas shopping online this year.

Coming at the end of a hugely disrupted year, which saw shops shuttered for long spells during the first lockdown, any hope that Christmas could provide some form of salvation for the retail sector looks sure to be dashed.

New figures published today by Springboard, the retail intelligence specialist, underline that this is a Christmas like no other. According to Springboard, footfall in Scotland’s retail destinations weakened further in November as trading restrictions tightened, dropping by 38.7 per cent on the same month last year, following a 36.6% fall in October. The drop in footfall was even sharper on Scotland’s high streets, which was down 50%.

Even though we are in the midst of an online shopping boom – with the share of sales online rising sharply in November compared with the same month of 2019, and likely to trend similarly in December – no one is expecting it to be enough to offset the huge decline in footfall on the high street.

It would be hard enough for the retail sector if it had to deal with the coronavirus fallout in isolation. Unfortunately, it was already facing profound challenges before the crisis, with the sad collapse this week of Debenhams and Arcadia – putting an astronomical 25,000 jobs at risk – having their roots in structural change that was already well underway before Covid-19 became part of our daily reality.

The relentless rise of online shopping, twinned with overheads in the shape of expensive business rates and spiralling rents (that web-only operators do not have to pay), has had the high street in retreat for years.

That has been evidenced by the slew of big names that have either gone out of business or emerged from insolvency events with significantly fewer stores – and staff – in recent years, with Debenhams itself having been placed into administration on two occasions.

Bonmarche became the latest name to join that ignominious list when it fell into administration yesterday, following the collapse of other chains owned by the retailer Philip Day, including Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

The domino effect has rightly sparked renewed debate over the future of the UK high street, and the impact such extensive shop closures will have on the vibrancy of our towns and city centres.

It is clear there must be an urgency now among policymakers to come up with solutions to counter this tumultuous change, as there is clearly no end to the closures in sight.

Ewan MacDonald-Russell, head of policy and external affairs at the Scottish Retail Consortium, told me this week that the industry will be approaching the New Year with fear.

It is at this point, when the dust settles on the success or otherwise of Christmas and post-festive sales, when retailers will take stock of their estates and decide whether further downsizing is required.

“Everyone is really worried about January,” Mr MacDonald-Russell said, observing that even if areas are lifted out of tier four on December 11, city centres will not be able to offer the usual festive attractions that draw people in.

Certainly, there is already a haunted look about many of our high streets and shopping malls. Empty shop fronts have long been a widespread sight, and now even prestigious shopping malls are being blighted by empty units. What can the gargantuan Silverburn near Glasgow do, for example, when Debenhams shuts its doors? Can its owners reasonably expect another big name retailer to occupy two floors of prime space when the future for retail looks so uncertain?

Likewise in Glasgow city centre, what could possibly fill the void when the sprawling Debenhams department store shuts its doors for the last time?

Back in September, which now seems like a long time ago, The Herald hosted an online debate on the future of the high street. The assembled experts were firm in their belief that retail would still have a role to play, it would just be different.

Examples were given of how retailers are adapting, including stores morphing into showrooms where people pick up goods they have ordered online.

But there can be no doubt now, with the pandemic providing rocket fuel to the structural changes already under way, that the need for retail to evolve is more urgent.

At the same time, policymakers must also make town centre vitality even more of a priority. It should be acknowledged that good work is already being done, for example in Paisley, where a new cinema has been placed at the heart of an ambitious masterplan. In Glasgow, efforts have been made to open up council-owned properties to start-ups, while the funding of Scotland’s Business Improvement Districts has undoubtedly made a difference to towns around Scotland.

But, with further shop closures almost inevitable in the months ahead, the challenge of maintaining vibrancy in towns and city centres is only going to become more acute.

It is important to acknowledge the positives, though. The shift to online has created jobs in areas such as order fulfilment and delivering packages, and there was certainly a spell when local retailers did well when the country was placed into lockdown earlier this year.

Mr MacDonald-Russell also held out the hope of retail jobs of a higher quality emerging. Consumers may place orders for items online, but there is still a role to be played in stores by knowledgeable staff who can provide advice and point them in the right direction. The likes of John Lewis already have a strong reputation in this regard.

There is also the simple fact that people in Scotland do like to visit the shops, and it must surely be expected that footfall will bounce back when the benefits of the coronavirus vaccine programme begin to crystallise in the months ahead.

Retail is undoubtedly going through a deeply challenging phase, but such factors offer hope that it could yet have a future.