Downward Spiral Of High St Retail Cont.

[Oh Dear]

So make the shops pay for their benefit. Actually, it's a free market. Nothing stopping them buying the council car park and making it free.

Nothing stopping them buying them and charging for it. However, don't we 'already own it' if it is a council car park, so the charges are mostly just money grabbing at the communities expense IMO.

[Byron]

Swansea saw a number of totally unecessary road 'improvements' in March, obviously to burn up the end of year budget surplus.

It would not hurt to cut staff numbers at City Hall.

[Ulfar]

Town centres are dying and very little can be done to stop this.

It started with councils allowing all the supermarkets to build out of town stores. Then to add insult to injury parking and public transport became expensive.

It is being made much worse by the fact that shops are not competitive with on-line prices or stock availability. In some cases the actual shopping experience is horrendous, with bored, rude and disinterested staff.

Even food shopping is easier, quicker and cheaper to get home delivery.

Is this decline a bad thing well that is a matter of perspective.

[happy_renting]

The Internet is killing off shops, it's just the natural evolution of retailing.

People will want to buy some stuff from shops - clothing , shoes, people like to try stuff on; fresh food, restaurants, etc. But generally, so much can be ordered through (and indeed, delivered by) the Internet, many shops are almost pointless, especially with their overheads and costs of parking.

That said, I am lucky enough to be living in an affluent country town with a busy, pleasant town centre, marred by the occasional chugger.

I think, in the long term, large supermarkets may be vulnerable, and may go back to their core products (food, clothing). When there is more choice online, and specialist retailers can carry a wider range of items, it makes no odds to the buyer how big the seller is.

Usable home 3D printing is a long way off, but I expect specialist on-line 3D printing boutiques to arrive, able to print items/ spare parts for a lot of commercial products, and also your custom designs.

Already, we have seen high street CD/DVD sellers succumb to on-line sellers, and if the record labels ever get their act together, we will be able to download all music at CD-quality (not mP3s!).

Insurance, holidays, computer items, films, books & magazines, gambling, banking, property sales... the Internet is often better than going to a shop, and the service/prodect can be delivered over the Internet.

High streets will possibly come back as residential areas. Think of all those properties being converted to housing...

[goldbug9999]

By the way, I support the town centres and am willing to put up with a bit of inconvenience and do my best to avoid big box stores when picking up consumables and sundries.

I buy almost everything (that I dont get online) from tescos these days because you cant beat it for value/service/convenience. Aside from that they are actually open when at times when I want shop i.e. in the evening and on a sunday. I mean really who came up with this idea that shops should be open when most people are working and then close when they are not.

[OnlyMe]

I think, in the long term, large supermarkets may be vulnerable, and may go back to their core products (food, clothing). When there is more choice online, and specialist retailers can carry a wider range of items, it makes no odds to the buyer how big the seller is.

Was thinking that earlier today - for all their "buying" power they have almost zero manufacturing power.

Their size allowed them to expand easily onto the internet. Smaller and specialist outfits even now are only just getting to grips with it and starting to go that way - if you;ve never visited them they are virtually invisible and very difficult to price check. I think the price checking is the key as that is what will allow some specialists to spank the supermarkets with their large overheads in many areas. Went to a place today where pricing for the product I wanted was half the established big name shed price (the shed had the item in the catalogue but didn;t stock at local store, only just now getting on the internet and had never heard of them and only about 5 miles away.

[rxe]

The problem with shops these days is that they fail in their one remaining USP which is the ability to hand over the money and take the goods away. In a very large number of cases, they don't have the goods in the first place. If you find a shop with stuff in it, then it is often hard to take it away - try taking a fridge away from John Lewis or similar - you can't, the only one is the display item. "But we can deliver it in two days" they bleat - so what, the internet can deliver it in one, at a lower price.

Say I want some thing mundane, like a drill bit. The local town will be able to supply me some cheap chinese rubbish that will fail immediately. When I ask for quality, they offer me the same rubbish in a more expensive package. Or I can go online, select from a vast array of options (decent Dormer HSS, carbide, left hand, spade, extra long, you name it...) and have it next day for no more than the chinese tat.

In terms of cost - well, I can break out the car, spend a few quid on petrol and spend another few quid on parking. If I wanted to appease the enviro-loonies, I could wait 4 hours at the bus stop and pay £2.50 each way. Or I could have stuff delivered for £5. "no brainer" as the yoof say.

I probably now spend 95% of my money online. About the only things I physically buy (as in hand over money to a person) are lunch and petrol.

[StainlessSteelCat]

I think big retailers, like Tesco, will survive but they have a difficult transitional period as people order their stuff online and get it delivered. I hope they don't own many of their big stores...

I'm utterly amazed that anyone would drive a car to a big supermarket, spend a hour or so doing a big shop - when they could simply get stuff delivered. If you are ultrafrugal - ie cycle or walk to said supermarket and are mostly looking for end of day bargains, yes I can understand it - you are willing to trade time for discounts. Even now I try and order more and more online so I don't have to cart it home on the bike. And for some things, Amazon's subscribe and save is cheaper than Tesco. I only wish Lidl would deliver as their museli is the best price/quality option there is.

[winkie]

What I don't like about the big stores....they are quite happy to enter an area and price cut and drive out the small businesses that have served the community for years....they have the clout to sweet talk councils with road calming ideas and providing say a play area or some other irrelevant so called community benefit. But when another better big player requests to come into the area to compete against them they fight it tooth and nail.....they always want it all their own way.

[@contradevian]

Methinks all those relying on the continuance of a car based economy are in for a rude awakening. It was the car that destroyed many a town centres. Mine is strangled by an appalling ring road. Hundreds of houses, shops and business were destroyed in the 60's to build this "Motorway to nowhere" (usually to slightly out of town supermarkets). Hundreds more houses and communities were destroyed to build the spaces for cars to park on, so that fat Council workers only had to waddle to work for a few minutes. Look at pics of your town centre at the turn of the 19/20th century. Relaxed people walking about, very little (horse drawn) traffic, andtrams and with no fear of being flattened by a juggernaut or boy racers doing 90mph on the grand prix circuit built by the Council. You created your own hells.

[Rare Bear]

Methinks all those relying on the continuance of a car based economy are in for a rude awakening. It was the car that destroyed many a town centres. Mine is strangled by an appalling ring road. Hundreds of houses, shops and business were destroyed in the 60's to build this "Motorway to nowhere" (usually to slightly out of town supermarkets). Hundreds more houses and communities were destroyed to build the spaces for cars to park on, so that fat Council workers only had to waddle to work for a few minutes. Look at pics of your town centre at the turn of the 19/20th century. Relaxed people walking about, very little (horse drawn) traffic, andtrams and with no fear of being flattened by a juggernaut or boy racers doing 90mph on the grand prix circuit built by the Council. You created your own hells.

Yes, look at the pictures, idyllic. The reality might not have been. I was born in a small, pop 2000 then, Irish town in 1950.

Nearest city was 14 miles away. There were people in primary school with me who had never been to that city. Ther used to be guys going into that city with a horse and cart loaded with turf to sell. Going the other way, into the country proper it wasnt that unusual for people to go to Mass on a horse drawn sidecar or standing on the back of the wee gray Ferguson Tractor.

Pretty yes, pictures idyllic, yes. Would you really want to live like that?

Edit to add: Forgot to mention, vans, mobile shops, went around the countryside selling house to house. They took the day old bread from the bakery.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Rare Bear

[Goat]

I think, in the long term, large supermarkets may be vulnerable, and may go back to their core products (food, clothing). When there is more choice online, and specialist retailers can carry a wider range of items, it makes no odds to the buyer how big the seller is.

Maybe, maybe not.

With their highly efficient logistics operations and edge of town locations I suspect that they can probably compete with the online retailers on price. It's not really going to cost them any more to keep goods on their shelves than it is to keep them in a warehouse.

High streets will possibly come back as residential areas. Think of all those properties being converted to housing...

I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen in the longer term. Outside of food and clothing there's not really much that makes sense from a conventional shop anymore.

My guess is that it'll take the councils 20 years to work this out and change the planning permission. In the end I suspect that a lot of the landlords will just bulldoze their buildings to avoid the business rates.

[Priced_Out_GenXer]

The Internet is killing off shops, it's just the natural evolution of retailing.

People will want to buy some stuff from shops - clothing , shoes, people like to try stuff on; fresh food, restaurants, etc. But generally, so much can be ordered through (and indeed, delivered by) the Internet, many shops are almost pointless, especially with their overheads and costs of parking.

This.

I live in Milton Keynes and despite having one of the biggest and most modern shopping centres in Europe on my doorstep I very rarely use it. Instead I buy almost everything online except for groceries which I get at a big supermarket chain and shoes / clothes but even these I am starting to buy online if I can be confident of the size/fit. There is much better value and convenience to be had online. It's interesting that I saw just the other day - for the first time in thirty years - empty retail space in MK shopping centre. I've also noticed that MK shopping centre now consists mostly of shoe shops, clothing stores and jewellers, much more so than in years past. I suspect that this is because clothes, shoes and jewellery are the only items which it is better to buy in person and which haven't yet been completely hoovered up by supermarkets and big box retail parks.

I had to visit Bletchley last week (a small town on the outskirts of MK) to take an electrical item to a local repair centre. It's the first time I've been there in years and it's always been a bit rough and ready but when I was a kid I had many happy days out there at the local leisure centre. I was struck by how difficult and costly it was to park and how utterly depressing the place had become. The high st now consists almost entirely of pound shops, pawnbrokers, bookmakers, off licences and charity shops. A once thriving purpose built covered market that extended the entire length of the high st has been knocked down, pedestrianised and replaced with a handful of temporary stalls Everyone looked like they had just walked off the set of Jeremy Kyle and when I got back to my car I saw a young chavvy looking couple with a pushchair rummaging through a skip at the back of a row of shops. I knew things had gone downhill but it was horrendous, it felt like some kind of dystopian alternate reality!

Edited April 17, 2013 by Priced_Out_GenXer

[Goat]

I was struck by how difficult and costly it was to park and how utterly depressing the place had become.

The internet is a powerful competitor but the councils themselves are doing their best to kill off the high street themselves.

Parking and traffic management is frequently so horrendous that shoppers stay away; who's going to go into town when they suspect that they'll get hit with a £60 fine if they make the mistake off overstaying by 5 minutes? Factor in the massive rates bills that the shops have to pay and how on earth are they supposed to compete?

The high st now consists almost entirely of pound shops, pawnbrokers, bookmakers, off licences and charity shops.

Charity shops are generally exempt from business rates; it's got to the point where landlords are happy to let charities have shops for free just to stop paying the rates bill.

Pound shops and pawnbrokers can't be easily done over the internet hence their survival.

I'm not sure how the bookies and off licences are surviving - maybe on the backs of the above?

Everyone looked like they had just walked off the set of Jeremy Kyle and when I got back to my car I saw a young chavvy looking couple with a pushchair rummaging through a skip at the back of a row of shops.

Presumably this was midweek when everyone else was at work. Maybe not though.

[copydude]

The high st now consists almost entirely of pound shops, pawnbrokers, bookmakers, off licences and charity shops.

Yes, but you left out a couple of things. Banks and Estate Agents.

So, effectively, no shops at all.

The only thing that would revive the high street would be as a place for small, specialist shops . . . and nice old fashioned tea rooms, bakeries, really, anything you can't get online or in a supermarket. Amsterdam protects its small shops, which are quite fun. All sorts of quirky stuff.

But for this to happen, councils would have to (considerably) reduce rents and parking charges.

[SNACR]

With their highly efficient logistics operations and edge of town locations I suspect that they can probably compete with the online retailers on price. It's not really going to cost them any more to keep goods on their shelves than it is to keep them in a warehouse.

Hundreds of warehouse on the outskirts of towns can never be cheaper than one.

Theoretically, if you reformed Royal Mail, stripped it of its pension liability legacy costs and unionisation, and brought it into the 21st century, it would be cheaper for you to order almost anything online and it have some kind of barcode/rfid information containing your address details applied as it leaves the production line, even food.

There is a huge, huge issue without the amount of money tied up in bloated supermarket inventories. They often decide to extend into ever more niche product areas in an attempt to capture the entire market without really thinking about it. Take a product like a bike chain de-linker. Some category manager in Tescos will think let's tack this on to our range and order up enough from China to fill every shelf peg in all their superstores with a few dozen plus some reserve stock. The problem is when you multiply it out they end up with the equivalent of something like three times or more the entire annual UK market of a product just sat warming shelves. Add in a couple of competitors deciding to stock it as well and the situation gets worse.

Too much product chasing too little market but then that's the Chinese manufacturing miracle all over.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Soon Not a Chain Retailer

[Greg Bowman]

Methinks all those relying on the continuance of a car based economy are in for a rude awakening. It was the car that destroyed many a town centres. Mine is strangled by an appalling ring road. Hundreds of houses, shops and business were destroyed in the 60's to build this "Motorway to nowhere" (usually to slightly out of town supermarkets). Hundreds more houses and communities were destroyed to build the spaces for cars to park on, so that fat Council workers only had to waddle to work for a few minutes. Look at pics of your town centre at the turn of the 19/20th century. Relaxed people walking about, very little (horse drawn) traffic, andtrams and with no fear of being flattened by a juggernaut or boy racers doing 90mph on the grand prix circuit built by the Council. You created your own hells.

It was provincial 100 years ago and it is now. If you have had the buzz of a big city very difficult to get excited by places outside them. Not just London, Manchester, Birminham, Glasgow et al. I bet there are more traditional retailers in city centres than towns now. There are still old fashioned hardware shops in Soho.

You are right about cars but then they are optional in a city

[justthisbloke]

Hundreds of warehouse on the outskirts of towns can never be cheaper than one.

One supermarket at least is introducing "dark stores"; massive distribution centres as Amazon have.

[justthisbloke]

It was provincial 100 years ago and it is now. If you have had the buzz of a big city very difficult to get excited by places outside them. Not just London, Manchester, Birminham, Glasgow et al. I bet there are more traditional retailers in city centres than towns now. There are still old fashioned hardware shops in Soho.

You are right about cars but then they are optional in a city

In my local town, independents seem to thrive. They're all very specialised (homebrew shop, sewing machine shop etc) and many have a web presence as well - but the complement rather than compete with our town centre Tesco and Aldi.

[Giraffe]

In my local town, independents seem to thrive. They're all very specialised (homebrew shop, sewing machine shop etc) and many have a web presence as well - but the complement rather than compete with our town centre Tesco and Aldi.

What's the population size of the town?

[justthisbloke]

Edit to add: Forgot to mention, vans, mobile shops, went around the countryside selling house to house. They took the day old bread from the bakery.

The great con of the out-of-town development.

Even if it were true that such places were cheaper (they aren't, in reality), in order to save 10p on a pint of milk, you first need to spend £10,000 on a car plus training plus insurance plus tax plus fuel etc. Of course, even if you're rich enough to buy a car and save your 10p, you might not be old enough or you may be disabled.

Or you may just want to spend your money on more interesting things than being part of a profiteering supermarket's logistics chain.

[justthisbloke]

What's the population size of the town?

50,000.

It does benefit from being a public transport nexus and having a lot of population within walking distance of the town centre.

Which reminds me of another point. A lot of people on this thread keep saying that parking charges kill towns ("Parking and traffic management is frequently so horrendous that shoppers stay away" for example). We had a survey done round here and it turned out that, to everyone's amazement, only a minority arrived by car.

[the gardener]

50,000.

It does benefit from being a public transport nexus and having a lot of population within walking distance of the town centre.

Which reminds me of another point. A lot of people on this thread keep saying that parking charges kill towns ("Parking and traffic management is frequently so horrendous that shoppers stay away" for example). We had a survey done round here and it turned out that, to everyone's amazement, only a minority arrived by car.

Er...that would be because those with cars stayed away and thus weren't part of the sample, I would imagine.

[Goat]

In my local town, independents seem to thrive. They're all very specialised (homebrew shop, sewing machine shop etc) and many have a web presence as well - but the complement rather than compete with our town centre Tesco and Aldi.

I suspect that if you looked at the accounts you'd find that a lot of those shops aren't actually making any money.

Realistically to breakeven on a highstreet shop you'll need to be turning over roughly £150,000 p/a, say £3,000 p/w. That's an awful lot of hops, grain or sewing needles.

Have a look through the windows next time you're there, see if you can guess how much they are taking.

[Priced_Out_GenXer]

Presumably this was midweek when everyone else was at work.

Correct, it was a weekday lunchtime, although I suspect it would be much the same at the weekend. To be fair Bletchley and the other old towns on the outskirts of Milton Keynes we're always going to struggle after MK shopping mall was built in the early 80s but the decline has really gathered pace in recent years. Sony Stratford and to a lesser extent Newport Pagnell have managed to survive but the demographic is very different in those towns, way more affluent and lots of specialist art/crafts and antique shops, upmarket pubs and restaurants etc.