This is the time of year when retailers usually start to get excited. The torpor of summer has gone, and at last, attention can turn towards the traditional Christmas bonanza.

But the “golden quarter” as these three months are known, is rapidly losing its lustre. It’s still the occasion for the big sales push, still the period when tills ring and queues form. Where once, though, it heralded a boosting of profits, now it’s about raking in enough to stave off another round of dismal results and yet more store closures. In short, this year, the coming season represents an opportunity to stay alive, rather than luxuriate in a brilliant 12 months.

Already, as far as 2018 is concerned, the omens are not promising. Non-food, fashion, shops especially, are dreading what is coming. A walk along any high street reveals a stark truth: tonnes of stock, much of it the same or very similar; and crucially, insufficient people. And, where there is footfall, they’re wandering around, not spending.

A glance at their clothing illustrates part of this year’s issue. In large areas of the country, folk are still wearing their summer clothes, or at least, summer, with a thin layer on top. What they are not doing is turning to woolly jumpers, coats and boots. And, crucially, they are not buying them either.

The continuing warm weather in some regions is the last thing hard-pressed chains need. It’s been a bad year for the shops, weather-wise. The Beast from the East swept in, bringing unseasonably cold temperatures. Then came months of unrelenting heat. Now, a late summery blast.

Last October was autumnal, and the warmer clothes flew off the rails. So far this year that has not happened – so expect some depressing like-for-likes.

Weather apart, retailers are contending with a consumer who is cautious, and has adopted a resilient stance against austerity and Brexit.

Consumers have also been hit by inflation. A weakened pound has pushed up prices, while average wages have remained more or less flat, leading to a squeeze on household spending.

Everything appears to be a struggle to sell. In food, where the discount push continues. So Tesco has launched Jack’s, which may battle to dislodge Aldi and Lidl, the dominant discounters with all the best sites they want sewn up long ago, and could end up cannibalising its own Tesco stores.

In clothes and in big ticket items, where even the mighty John Lewis has been suffering.

Meanwhile, online powers ahead. Last year internet sales accounted for 17 per cent of total sales. This year, that proportion is expected to have risen to 24 per cent or nearly a quarter. Department stores in particular are taking the brunt of this shift.

70,000

What this all means, ultimately, is more empty shops. Out of Britain’s 500,000 stores, some 50,000 or 10 per cent, are shut. Matthew Hopkinson, a property analyst and co-author of an independent study, Grimsey Review 2, estimates “that could rise to 100,000 within a decade if current trends continue”. This year alone, says Grimsey Review 2, nearly 70,000 high street jobs will disappear.

Bill Grimsey, the former Wickes and Iceland chief executive, who first looked at the crisis facing our high streets in a 2013 report, is in no doubt: “There is no point clinging to a sentimental vision of the past. We have to accept that there is already too much retail space in the UK, and that bricks and mortar retailing can no longer be the anchor for thriving high streets and town centres.”

Groups that grew like mad, opening outlet after outlet, moving into less economically resilient centres, are now having to pull back.

But even in the more prosperous places, the “closing down” signs are going up. There as well, there are too many shops. One landlord in Cambridge told his shopkeeper tenant: “We no longer know how to price retail rents – tell us what you think you should pay and we’ll see if we can do it.” That tenant is hoping to extract a rent-free period as well as a reduction.

Not all landlords are so benign, and are unprepared to be flexible. This is cited by retailers as a key factor for their weakness: upward-only rental reviews. Combine soaring rents with ever-increasing business rates, as councils must attempt to make ends meet, and the burden becomes toxic. Include, too, the requirement to meet the national minimum wage, plus ever tighter employment regulations, and constantly rising council parking charges, and it’s all too much.

They say, rightly, that their online rivals are immune from all this. It’s clear that something has to give, that the internet sellers must be taxed, to begin at least to level the imbalance between them and the bricks and mortar stores.

An overhaul of the business rates system and an embargo on new out-of-town malls would also help our shopping streets.

But the problems go much deeper. Plenty of shops have closed and they’re not coming back. We need to look urgently at reinventing our high streets, to making them more like community hubs, with arts and cultural facilities, and finding alternative uses for abandoned shops, to turn them into leisure, entertainment and offices.

All that is for the future – although, the government and councils should be acting now. It’s too late, of course, for the retailers as they enter this so-called golden quarter. Change has to come. Their objective must be to still be standing when it does.

Chris Blackhurst is a former editor of The Independent, and director of C|T|F Partners, the campaigns and strategic communications advisory firm