Once all the silliness has calmed down and people stop being afraid of their own (or someone else's) shadow. It will go back to how it was before. It will do that cos if you look in any town centre, the vast majority wandering about buying stuff are the middle to older end those that have no online footprint, because lots of people actually enjoy shopping and because if you need anything now - then it needs to be collected now Same if you want to try something on or see what it really looks like If Sunak can give some of those High Street businesses some help, that is brilliant though. They are employers, rate payers, tax payers and a point of social contact. Its all a good thing to prise some of the lazy sods that never exit their desks or sofa's outside where they can spend in the shops they WILL need one day. A mix is what is needed.
Nobody wants shoes but they can't get enough haircuts. So, you have many bare-footed hippies with tidy hair? Nah, that has got me beaten!
To be fair the actual local high street to me isn’t too bad, there’s 2 of everything butchers, bakers, doctors, dentists, fruit & veg shops, pubs, restaurants, charity shops, cafes, a post office, 3 banks, shoe repairers, estate agents, travel agents, takeaways and an M&S food hall. Free parking if your prepared to take the chance that someone isn’t going to hit your car while they try to park/leave (a daily occurrence it seems) or the £1hr car park around the back of the high street and it’s always very busy up there. All a 10-15min walk away, it’s one of the factors when we moved a couple years ago. But the big town centres of Bournemouth and Poole didn’t adapt to the change or more importantly the council did feck all to help, the opposite in fact when a big retail centre was built out of town nearly 20yrs ago. A lot of the big retailers started closing their in town shops once they’d moved in there and the last big two Beales and Debenhams have now gone busy there really isn’t much left unless you want to buy a new cover for you phone? Seems to be a lot of those places popping up
And they need to recognise this new fangled thing called the internet. Say I want a 13 amp plug. My local hardware shop has been closed since Saturday at 1pm but I can't even check their stock to see if they have one. If they did, then I would know that I can go up tomorrow and buy one - without the normal Berkeley expression, "ffffffffffffssst! Haven't seen one of those in years!", so a simple system where customers could check stock themselves would be the same for thousands of shops, yet nobody can be arsed to develop one - or they have tried but could not find any interest in buying it! Shops ned to wake up! You don't need to be open 24/7, just have an online system where people can check and reserve stock. An online system just gives the illusion of being open and that is what people like Amazon get! So, most people will just buy off Amazon with next day delivery.
I’d say a bit of both but that’s still going to kill physical shopping if it’s like it is now. I need to send something back to Debenhams via Hermes. The problems I’m having simply getting labels and stuff tells me everything I need to know: happy to spend money with a company that has online and high st presence as the convenience of shopping and seeing the quality then ordering non standard sizes and being able to return to a shop works for me. Alas that’s not how the retail model works.
No tattooist then or nail bars, you know when you’ve sunk low when you have a smattering of these or like our town even Lidl can’t stay in business there.
My local town, has been declining for 20+ years, due to various Retail parks being opened up etc. It's full of Barbers/ Tattoo-ists/ homes to let/ Polish shops/ Suntastic outlets or just derelict banks. Don't even have any Night Clubs since the early 2000's. Used to be a central hub on a Sunny Sunday afternoon for a few beers etc. They've tried to charge for street parking, but that was a short lived scheme. However happy to waste £100's of Million's on building a new Council office/ Bus Station yet again though. The younger generation will be happy to shop online, but as 1 or 2 have mentioned, I still want to see, feel and try on stuff. Also like doing the food shopping, just don't trust the online shoppers to get exactly what you want right yet. It's also an essential excuse to get out of the house too in lockdown, as I've been working from home for the last 12 months.
You going to carry on wfh when this is done? I’m hoping 3 days max back in office, think that’s the right blend for me and my team, but working for a very traditional insurance company I suspect we’ll be back to 4/5 days. Buy I need two days in, had more than enough of my own company!
For the foreseeable future (2021) I doubt we need to go or will be allowed back to an office. However like you I'd like to return for 2 or 3 days a week. However once things calm down and return to reasonable normality, I'm tempted back into the Contracting World again, it that's possible.
The high street has been in decline for many years, town planners were the start of the rot. Back in the eighties the vogue was pedestrianisation , out of town parking, park and ride, retail parks.local by-passes took away passing trade,car parking charges discouraged people to go high street and head for the retail parks. Fast forward a few years and the internet put the final nails in the coffin, Amazon prime,next day delivery, Next, free returns....why wouldn’t you ? All COVID has done is introduce more people to on line shopping, once they all realise how easy it is they will continue. Last year I was after Cuprinol forest green fence paint ( as everyone else was in the north west apparently ! ) , after several phone calls to local shops,Amazon bailed me out.....simples!!
I don’t believe things will go back exactly how they were. Like the big changes in the early 1980s, some things, businesses, industries will change forever. Having seen how many people were out and about driving today (whilst we were walking) I would bet that there will still be restrictions after 21 June, and my guess is things will not return completely restriction free until Spring 2022.
Do people still go shopping? Shopping is like the BBC. Used to be good before the new alternatives came along & now its just an expensive waste of time.
Pictures on FB of queuing for ice cream locally today Karen says it’s ok it’s in the fresh air, social distanced and its sunny and everyone is fed up of being inside I honestly thought we were in lockdown I think I must be dreaming and no one has woken me up after 12 months inside
Can’t see it getting better. Govt have some big bills and ltd companies and self employed can be squeezed without media attention have to say I’m missing the 30% pay cut I’ve had this year
Don’t worry I’m sure half of the, will soon be a covid stat as it’s ravaging communities everywhere isn’t it...
Try contacting anyone to send a product back or complain it’s faulty or broken. Pretty much easier for a man to get to the moon, and cheaper, than getting satisfactory outcome.
I just click on Amazons returns . They email me a "weird square thing" back as a reply. I put the unwanted item back in the package it arrived in, re-tape closed it and head to the post office. The post office people scan the "weird square thing" from my smartphone screen. The most difficult part is choosing between a Twix or a KitKat which I buy since I'm there.
It's getting a lot of media exposure on LinkedIn. Seems too little too late tbh. Lots of Ltd Co's will have closed and many people being paid extra to cope with IR35 with plenty of ways to navigate through it, if you know the right people.
