They’re not closing because we’re all spending 20% less, they’re closing because we’re spending more and more with people like Amazon, who employ a fraction of the staff and pay no tax. An ongoing problem, that has been massively accelerated by this pandemic.
I know And you know I know I’m talking about an entirely different future of less commercialism (and local rather than Amazon), but I’d better leave it there because theoretical economic shift will quickly move into party politics...brother
But that’s just the natural evolution of the High street....people don’t need their services anymore. Their offerings aren’t in demand. The high street has always evolved, that’s why we don’t have blockbusters, redefusion or many telegram shops still around.. Other shops will replace them, eventually.
I wonder if Netflix or Amazon Prime will get around to making a film about Blockbuster's demise - really take the piss.
How many of these businesses have taken a golden goodbye off the government.... I'm sure like many here i've heard all sorts of stories of people 'benefitting' from this crisis...
Would you open a shop when you gave to pay rent , business rates and energy Bill's. Might as well open online and not pay most of this which is the point. Where does tax revenue/business rates come from ?
Some shops ‘might as well open online’ only because we have collectively made the choice that we couldn’t give a **** about having local shops if we can save a couple of quid instead. If that is the choice we stick with then yes, there’s no need for shops. However in the long run our taxes are likely to go up because Amazon will pay less tax every time they sell an album than Syd Scarbs did (just as one example) so in fact when you take into account the vast profits going away from the local economy (even from the UK economy) and the fact that either your taxes need to go up or the services you receive need to get cut, to plug the gap, it’s not such a great deal I don’t think. But hey...That’s what WE chose
It’s nothing to do with natural evolution, those days are gone, the retailers we’re losing are not going to be replaced. Unless radical action is taken, high streets as we know them, will cease to exist.
Nobody’s been paid to close down, so I suspect the answer to your question is none. About the same as the number of people who’ve ‘benefited’.
Being paid to close down is not what I was saying at all... How many of these businesses that were in trouble pre lockdown and received significant grant funding and furlough money have subsequently decided now is the time to close...
Furlough money goes to employees, not businesses and anyone who takes government money to stay afloat, then immediately shuts down, could find themselves in bother. Though £10k grants have kept thousands of small businesses afloat, it’s hardly the sort of money that’s going to see you through retirement.
I went to a conference last year where Mary Portas was a guest speaker, and a brilliant one at that. Despite having previously been employed by the government to reinvigorate the high street she was pretty frank in her prognosis. She forecast the continuing death of most high street retail due to online shopping and it being physically replaced by more mixed-use developments of niche shops, yet more coffee shops and more city-centre living alongside leisure uses that haven’t been created yet. It was a discussion and she acknowledged that even though your industry is increasingly moving online there would probably be a future for clothes retailers, shoe shops etc as many people still like trying stuff on without the hassle of postal returns, but she thought it would polarise into cheap-**** behemoths like Primark and Sports Direct and high-end boutique stores with a better customer experience, with the middle disappearing online. Covid is accelerating the changes, although it is of course bringing the closures forward, but not the rise of anything to replace them on the high street.
Have we reached the point where a man no longer needs to leave his Cave for anything? Works from home, shops online from home, drinks at home, chats from home and is an armchair football fan?
Mary Portas is good at everything she does, from predicting trends, to design and I agree with everything she said (though I think even the likes of Primark/Sports Direct may give up the high street to take up more out of town warehouse type units).
Completely agree and an argument I've had numerous times ! Most just dont care as long as they get it cheaper but moan when they ha e their yearly trip into the Town centre
