http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26849833 I was wandering through Douglas high street yesterday and there's **** all left - the only shopping centre on the Island has recently went into administration, and the shops that are left (the likes of HMV and Game) are almost certainly gone in near the future. Everyone buys everything from Amazon with free delivery to the island... and all the local business owners are in the papers bitching about it. So is it a bad thing - are we actually losing something of value?
Not necessarily so. There's plenty demand for books, but high street stores can't compete with Amazon who avoid paying taxes by being registered offshore.
Redevelop our dying high streets into low cost housing. All you really need is a butcher and a boozer. Everything else ye get from the supermarket or online.
I lost my Kindle last month while travelling and bought a book from a shop, €15 - it was 3 quid on Amazon when I looked. Can't compete is right - they have rates and rent and staff... but Amazon do pay VAT, the same as the High Street.
They didny break any rules. The tax man just disny like it when their own rules set up to benefit the rich are used against them.
Exactly, there is little demand for high street book shops because people can get them online cheaper.
I used to enjoy a good browse around a book shop. I used to treat book shops with almost reverence. You never knew what you could or would find. But it has to be said, browsing around Amazon is far easier and more productive in terms of finding new themes/authors/etc
I didn't say they did. Gus brought up the fact that they dodge tax and mick tried to completely sidestep it by saying "Aye but they pay VAT" So **** you, and him.
It can't be long now til we're all sitting in our self contained pods experiencing a digital recreation of what used to be called "life".
That doesn't contradict anything I just said (Corporation Tax is not VAT). Amazon made $274m profit on $75 billion of turnover last year http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=amzn Income Statement&annual - to put that into context, that is almost 1/3rd of 1 percent (0.36%) profit after costs - which compares to Tesco making over 5% on £72 billion http://www.theguardian.com/business...r-pressure-profit-margin-target-philip-clarke So aye, Amazon passes on it's efficiency to the consumer in the form of cheap prices (for the moment at least). If they were paying a government 20% corporation tax it would immediately be put onto all the prices we pay.
