And frankly, the picture he painted was a grim one. There are 44,682 vacant shops in the UK, 14 per cent of the available retail units – a number that jumps as high as 32.4 per cent in certain towns.

“The good news is that this has levelled off,” said Hopkinson. “Since I spoke at the Retail Summit last year, we havent seen a massive increase in vacancy.”

So what is mobiles role in this? Hopkinson pointed to how, during that period, companies have moved from fearing showrooming on handsets in store, moving from obscuring barcodes and trying to stop shoppers from accessing the internet in-store, to increasingly embracing the phenomenon.

“In the last year, retailers which are struggling have woken up to the fact that we the customers now expect wi-fi the way we expect natural light,” he said. “And its not just about price-checking. Its social, too.”

In fact, according to comScore data, the most common activity on a smartphones in-store is actually taking a picture of a product (42.3 per cent), followed by texting or calling their contacts about a product (36.9 per cent), and sending the picture to contacts (21.6 per cent).