Retailing: Betting on the high street HOWEVER rich they may be, it is hard to take television tycoons seriously. When one does make a splash in the real world it comes as a mild surprise. So it is with Peter Jones of the entrepreneurs" game show "Dragons" Den," who has swooped in to save Jessops, a chain of camera shops that had shut its doors in January. The flamboyant fire-breather will invest £5m ($7.6m) to buy the 78-year-old brand from the administrator, reopen up to 40 of the 189 shuttered stores and relaunch the emporium online. Mr Jones plays up the St George-like aspects of the deal. The new Jessops heralds "the future of physical retail," he declares. He launched a contest on Twitter that out-tweeted Olly Murs, a pop star. "Britain's high street," he claims, "is fighting back." It needs a champion. Chain stores shut nearly 2,000 more outlets than they opened last year. Many of the casualties were victims of economic stagnation and competition from online retailers with smaller payrolls and rent bills. Famous brands, such as Comet, an electronics chain, disappeared. Jessops looked doubly doomed: shoppers can try out cameras in stores, then buy more cheaply online. Besides, who needs cameras when every smart phone has one? Jessops may not have been as sick as it looked. The chain had already smartened up a quarter of its stores, says Peter Saville of Zolfo Cooper, a firm that advises on restructurings. Its sales online had reached 40% of the total. Jessops" main problem, he reckons, is that it was owned by a bank, which was reluctant to invest further, and had too many expensive leases. Mr Jones will not have those burdens. The pruned-back network of outlets will be in prime locations. Jessops will share back-office services with his other companies. The enthusiasts who man Jessops" shops will draw punters to buy cameras, much as Apple's "geniuses" bring throngs to its high-street stores. They will make extra money by selling accessories, which is harder for online merchants. Customers who buy online will often pick up purchases in stores. Mr Jones did not invent these ideas. All along the high street, chains are becoming "multichannel" merchants offering expert service through slimmed-down networks of shops. But with the hair-raising rescue of Jessops, Mr Jones may become the high street's most colourful advocate.