The people who decide on the viability of local shops are the timeserving lamebrains in your local planning department. They're the ones who want to preserve your high street in aspic, even as they grant planning permission to supermarkets on the outside of town, or on backland sites, each with 400 car spaces.
Local shops
- Thread starter Noodley
- Start date
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Over The Hill
Guru
- Location
- Ridden off into the sunset
Retailing is constantly changing.
Times can be equally hard for the big boys too - look at Wollies.
Survival is down to not how big you are but how you adapt to the market you are in.
I live in a village with three shops - one is an old style butchers. I have never been in it because I dont want to mess about while he cuts up bits of meat and weighs it for me. I just want meat in a packet with the price on so I can see what I get and the price. If he did this I would shop there. He does not change with the times so will die out in time.
Most one man shops are fairly bad at what they do where the big ones have more chance at getting it right as they are more open to new ideas and change.
I go in a few tea shops on my rides- most are rubbish at what they do compared to say MacDonalds. Poor and slow service is the norm. Good tea shops an exception. Any chain with a winning formula should be better than the local one man shop.
There is also a tendancy to go for a name you know as long as it was OK last time you used it.
Times can be equally hard for the big boys too - look at Wollies.
Survival is down to not how big you are but how you adapt to the market you are in.
I live in a village with three shops - one is an old style butchers. I have never been in it because I dont want to mess about while he cuts up bits of meat and weighs it for me. I just want meat in a packet with the price on so I can see what I get and the price. If he did this I would shop there. He does not change with the times so will die out in time.
Most one man shops are fairly bad at what they do where the big ones have more chance at getting it right as they are more open to new ideas and change.
I go in a few tea shops on my rides- most are rubbish at what they do compared to say MacDonalds. Poor and slow service is the norm. Good tea shops an exception. Any chain with a winning formula should be better than the local one man shop.
There is also a tendancy to go for a name you know as long as it was OK last time you used it.
Kirstie
Über Member
We live in a village without a shop at all - but the next village has one and it serves lots of the surrounding area. It's a post office too, and sells some local produce. It is crammed from floor to ceiling with all kinds of household items and the shopkeeper knows exactly where it all is! There's nothing it doesn't have, and lots of people support it. I hope it stays as the post office in particular is a lifeline for people here, especially as there's hardly any public transport to get to the nearest town.
This one is viable but it is all singing and all dancing!
This one is viable but it is all singing and all dancing!
gbb
Legendary Member
- Location
- Peterborough
For a local shop to survive, you've got to be either cheap, provide a good service or be specialised. And even then, its no guarantee.
A friend of mine retired from the P.O and set up a pet supplies store (foodstuffs, cages, dog baskets etc etc) in a local shopping centre. There was no immediate competition.
He scraped a living for about 5 years, then the death knell was when the local supermarket (not a big chain one) renaiged (sp) on an gentlemans agreement not to sell goods other local shops already did.
For instance, they were selling dog baskets cheaper than he could buy them wholesale
.
They just eroded his ability to sell to locals until he had to throw the towel in.
Along with that, you've the local authority to contend with. Our shopping centre, with maybe 30 small units slowly deteriorated because the council kept increasing the rents. The more the rents went up, the more shops gave up. The more the shops left, the more the council had to increase the rents. Vicious circle. Brainless councils....
A friend of mine retired from the P.O and set up a pet supplies store (foodstuffs, cages, dog baskets etc etc) in a local shopping centre. There was no immediate competition.
He scraped a living for about 5 years, then the death knell was when the local supermarket (not a big chain one) renaiged (sp) on an gentlemans agreement not to sell goods other local shops already did.
For instance, they were selling dog baskets cheaper than he could buy them wholesale
. They just eroded his ability to sell to locals until he had to throw the towel in.
Along with that, you've the local authority to contend with. Our shopping centre, with maybe 30 small units slowly deteriorated because the council kept increasing the rents. The more the rents went up, the more shops gave up. The more the shops left, the more the council had to increase the rents. Vicious circle. Brainless councils....
Arch
Married to Night Train
- Location
- Salford, UK
Over The Hill said:
On the other hand, if you want just a certain amount of meat, or to have it prepared in a certain way, he can do that, and most supermarkets can't. Try buying one chop in Sainsburys, or 4oz od mince.
Changing with the times, in your case seems to equate with 'providing as little service as possible'.
Also, you must be so very very busy and important, that you can't wait for the moments it takes a butcher to serve you. Although I expect you've got the time to walk all round the supermarket, and queue at the till...
Having said that, my nearest, locallest shop is Sainsburys, five minutes away, if I want food. If I want designer clothes or nick nacks or viking broadswords, I have loads of local independant shops to choose from. There is a butcher on the market, but I tend to shop in the evening, and he's closed by then (ditto fruit and veg - I know, I should make the effort to use the market, stock up at the weekend or go out at lunchtime, but I don't...)
Dave5N
Über Member
- Location
- Outside The Little Nibble
Not around here 'cos they keep increasing the leases. Tripled, in some cases.
Still Banardos is doing very well.
Still Banardos is doing very well.
Fnaar
Smutmaster General
- Location
- Thumberland
My small town has a good range of local shops, but they are in danger. I try to buy form them as often as I can, but I won't pay that much for carrots, thank you very much!
Freewheeler
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Warrington
There is an independent butchers and a bakery near where I live. The bakery always has a queue on Saturday mornings, and the butcher has a large whiteboard with people's orders written on, it's always full of orders and the queue there sometimes reaches out of the door on a Saturday when I go for my bacon butty material.
On the other hand, a rundown newsagents up the road was bought and refitted as a general store last year, and now there is a mini Tesco opening up next door. I feel sorry for the poor sods, they are just an average grocers and I reckon the Tesco is going to destroy their business unless they can specialise in some way.
On the other hand, a rundown newsagents up the road was bought and refitted as a general store last year, and now there is a mini Tesco opening up next door. I feel sorry for the poor sods, they are just an average grocers and I reckon the Tesco is going to destroy their business unless they can specialise in some way.
Flying_Monkey
Recyclist
- Location
- Odawa
Far be it for me to disagree with our resident architect, but it's got very little to to with the individual planning departments, who don't really have a lot of power however lame their brains, and everything to do with national planning (and other) policy (why do you think local planners are even allowed to approve out-of-town supermarkets?), and beyond that with economic globalization.
The agro-food system, for example meat, is a case in point: a lack of local abbatoirs (they can't afford the regulatory and inspection fees anymore), means it is very difficult for small farms to supply local butchers now. This, combined with the purchasing power and economies of scale of massive supermarket chains, and the alienation of people from food production - the cultural aversion to seeing meat as it really is - has killed many local butchers.
Local shops can only survive, either if like Kirstie's they can do everything conveniently and are thoroughly embedded in the community, or if they are niche-market specialists, or are supported by a wealthy local middle-class. It is, unfortunately, everyday suppliers for the lower-middle and working classes that are being killed...
The agro-food system, for example meat, is a case in point: a lack of local abbatoirs (they can't afford the regulatory and inspection fees anymore), means it is very difficult for small farms to supply local butchers now. This, combined with the purchasing power and economies of scale of massive supermarket chains, and the alienation of people from food production - the cultural aversion to seeing meat as it really is - has killed many local butchers.
Local shops can only survive, either if like Kirstie's they can do everything conveniently and are thoroughly embedded in the community, or if they are niche-market specialists, or are supported by a wealthy local middle-class. It is, unfortunately, everyday suppliers for the lower-middle and working classes that are being killed...
Flying_Monkey said:
my experience is this. Local plans are drawn up that seek to make this town or that town 'competitive' with the town ten or fifteen miles down the road. That means tin sheds near the bypass, or on the main road in to and out of the town.
This, I grant you, is slowly being turned around, but the enthusiasm for out of town supermarkets as a 'generator of employment' remains.
The other, more pernicious and persisting side of the coin is that nineteenth century and early twentieth century high streets are effectively no go areas for redevelopment other than by stealth - where, say, a supermarket or an electrical retailer takes two or three adjoining shop premises and combines them. It is a truism, beyond question, that high streets offer the very best opportunity for sustainable development, and, with that, the creation of high quality public space. Find me one where the planners have said 'let's take this in to the 21st century, and have a high street that is bolstered by people living within walking distance, and serves as a meeting place'. It doesn't happen, because the poor saps have the Use Classes Order stencilled to the back of their eyeballs, and the word 'townscape' (fmg) engraved on their foreheads.
Flying_Monkey
Recyclist
- Location
- Odawa
I agree with that. And certainly local planners lack imagination and planning is too afraid of the utopian impulses that inspired it. It's one of the reasons why I (used to) teach a course called The Future of Urban Planning which tried to get trainee planners and urban designers to think in more visionary ways (again). The assessment was to write a piece of urban science-fiction.
It will change - what you want is exactly what Newcastle (at least) teaches planning students, but I guess it will take a while to feed through. What architects are taught is far less innovative in social terms in Britain than planning education.
It will change - what you want is exactly what Newcastle (at least) teaches planning students, but I guess it will take a while to feed through. What architects are taught is far less innovative in social terms in Britain than planning education.
Accy cyclist
Legendary Member
- Location
- The hills of Accrington
Total thread resurrection!
Friday night my laptop's mains connection wire/cable went kaput,meaning i had an hour's battery life left
. I phoned a local computer shop owner who said he'd have a look for one in his shop in the morning. He spent half an hour searching for one that fit. After he'd found one i asked how much i owed him. He said 20 quid. How about that for cheap local service!
Yes,i know it wasn't new,but if he hadn't been there i'd have had to order one off the internet,waiting a week or so for it to arrive and he came out all for a mere 20 pounds!
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ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
Er, expensive? It seems a lot for a cable!Friday night my laptop's mains connection wire/cable went kaput,meaning i had an hour's batter life left
Or did you mean £20 for a whole charger unit complete with cables? That would be much more reasonable.
Accy cyclist
Legendary Member
- Location
- The hills of Accrington
The whole jobby! Stretching from electrical socket to the little bit that goes into the laptop!🧐Er, expensive? It seems a lot for a cable!
Or did you mean £20 for a whole charger unit complete with cables? That would be much more reasonable.
No matter how much it cost or didn't cost,if he hadn't had been there i would've been absolutely fecked for at least a week!🧐
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