THE old adage that a shop is never so popular as when it has a sale on, may need modifying.

Nowadays it seems, a shop is never so popular as when it has a sale on, or when it is about to close down.

HMV is the latest High Street 'name' to go under, the store on Newport's Commercial Street among those that will not be kept open as part of a rescue package.

Earlier this week, I happened to walk past the Newport store and found its windows covered with 'closing down' posters promising big reductions. Surprise, surprise, its aisles were busier with eager shoppers than for many a long month.

In these economically straitened times it is hardly surprising people are especially sensitive to sniffing out a bargain. But it is also grimly ironic that it takes a store closure to boost footfall to a level that, had it been the norm, would have perhaps prevented closure.

Of course, HMV is a classic victim of the march of online shopping and it is not difficult to see why.

The last time I went into an HMV store, the three-CD set I was looking for was priced, just days after its release, at an eye-popping £21. I went home, turned on the computer, and two minutes later I had purchased the same item for £13.89, including postage and packaging. It arrived, in perfect condition, two days later.

Little wonder 'traditional' High Streets cannot compete despite remaining, I suspect for the majority of shoppers, a much more fulfilling retail experience.

But if a report published this week is to be believed, in the not too distant future our High Streets will be comprised solely of cheque cashing/payday loan providers, pound shops, pawn shops, charity shops, betting shops, supermarkets and coffee shops.

These, according to the findings of PwC and the Local Data Company, are the retail types that increased their presence most on the High Street in 2012.

Those whose presence dwindled most were card and poster shops, computer games shops, women's clothes shops, recruitment agencies, general clothing stores, health foods and products shops, and banks and financial institutions.

What a day out that will prove to be.

Nip down to the payday loan provider for some much-needed funds, along to the pound shop for some cheap essentials, then pawn your mobile phone, pop into a charity shop to buy some mix 'n' match clothes, into the betting shop to try in vain to win a fortune on the gee-gees, down to the Tesco Local (on the site where the really good delicatessen used to be), then into Costa for a morale boosting hot chocolate with squirty cream and marshmallows, before heading home.

Not my idea of fun, apart from the hot chocolate, squirty cream and marshmallows.

SO, what is to be done about the retail malaise?

Dan Wagner, boss of mobile payment company mPowa, has an idea. Unfortunately, it stinks.

He foresees a High Street where beleaguered retailers, desperate to become 'vital' again, equip sales staff with mobile phones and tablets - equipped with mPowa software of course - with which they can roam the stores taking on-the-spot payments.

Dan calls this "a more fluid transaction process." I call it retail stalking, a grave threat to the age-old tradition of browsing.

Worse still, in Dan's High Street of the future, retailers using the aforementioned e-commerce techniques will be able to track our buying histories and notify us of different offers and deals they believe may suit us, via our mobile phones as we shop.

Dan says "your mobile will become a compass leading you towards potential purchases tailored to your taste." I say that far from being a vision of retail utopia, this is a vision of retail hell.

Of course, it already happens online but the strong-willed among us ignore these suggestions, preferring to retain a mind of our own.

The High Street should be a shopping oasis, an escape from such e-intrusion.

Alas, I suspect the last message I receive on my mobile phone - before I dash it against the paving stones - will be "hi Andy, why not take a break with a delicious hot chocolate with squirty cream and marshmallows?"

Thanks, Dan. Thanks a lot.