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I usually wonder about Boots too, in their big branches the stock is spread around trying to fill in space. They just feel like a struggling business.
ToysRus terrible service whenever I went, I really didn't like it as a shopping experience. There are some other big names on the high street now like The Entertainer and Smyth's that seem to be doing a similar job but on a more manageable scale.
I think they have (had?) a big magazine distribution business. Maybe that’s propping them up too, but I’d imagine that must be a shrinking business these days.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
We also have a John Lewis but even they are struggling at store level. They make their profits online.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
I've knew someone who fell on hard times and ended up working for Amazon at a packing depot in Wales. He felt unvalued, badly treated and couldn't wait to get away - which is hard if you live in an area that's got very few other employment opportunities. Which is one of the reasons their depots are sited where they are - cheap labour and desperate local government giving tax breaks and incentives to move in and employ local people. The race to the bottom.
I'm joining the dots a bit, but I guess that most 'high streets' emerged from the historic market / trading areas or a particular town. Where people used to bring their locally produced wares to flog them.
The nice thing about that it was largely a self contained economy e.g. the baker made and traded his bread in his high street shop. In the afternoon he went to the local bike shop to get the wheel on his bike fixed. The bike shop owner, tired at the end of a hard day mending bikes, went to the pub and bought a beer. The next morning the landlord went to the baker to buy his loaf of bread and so it continued.
In the new model, the baker doesn't have a job as a baker because someone else makes the bread and the local Tesco convenience store sells it. Now he has upskilled and sits in front of a PC emailing people all day about stuff. He doesn't bother fixing his bike wheel, he just buys a new bike from the internet because they are cheap and so is the credit he uses to pay for it.
The money he borrows and spends doesn't just leave his community. It leaves the country and goes to Amazon and the bloke in China that made the bike wheel, who has no interest in having a beer at the bakers local boozer. So the baker stops going there and the boozer closes.
Meanwhile he keeps busting the wheels on his bike because the local council haven't repaired the pot holes in the road. Because the Amazon shareholders have the money that would have been paid to the council through taxes.
But at least he can get a new bike wheel cheaply and quickly while sitting on his arse.
I like the old model better. You?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirebrook#Regeneration