Disappearing shopsops

Parking was always the problem in the market town where I used to live.

mrsmopp

As people flock to Primark or order from Amazon shops are closing left right and center. We’ve lost Debenhams, BHS, Woolworths, Laura Ashley, and lots more. I don’t want to shop online, I want to see what I’m getting. But our high street shops are a dying breed.
A nation of shopkeepers? Not any more.

Since lockdown my local area has become a magnet for smaller independant shops. In my village alone, new coffee shop/ convenience store, hardware shop, thank goodness, new artists shop, we have two other convenience stores, two butchers, two bakers, card shop, chemist, can eat from India, China, Italy, Spain(tapas bar), all thriving, think that is the way to go, clothes shops in town, bus ride away.

Online shopping takes the embarrassment of walking out of a shop where nothing pleases you. I can't bear to be assisted as I know just what I want having made an art-form of consumerism. I find myself buying stuff to just get out. Auntie Wainwright would have loved me!

I must be in the minority as I hate shopping. I have a handful or online retailers whose clothes fit me and I use them. Our Debenhams was pretty awful apart from the perfumery and cosmetics department, the clothes retailers and franchises seemed to be forever having sales and there were always rails of pulled about clothes. I buy my clothes from British online retailers, the postage is reasonable, returns free or low cost. What on earth are people buying that costs more to return than the value of the item itself? I have just bought a new bra online, a great success, and they are a small, start up business. Big High Street chains have had their day, covid19 just speeded up the decline. I think that eventually we will end up with High Street showrooms where you can see/touch and then order.

Cosmetics online can be a bit problematic and you sometimes need to see shades on your skin but unless I travel miles to big towns or cities, I will have to stick with the tried and true. Although at 78, who's looking at me

The high street would be regenerated by small businesses if the cost of rent and council tax was much reduced.

Went to Next today, Monday: the changing rooms are still closed. I returned the trousers I bought 2 days ago and didn't bother to look for anything else.

I've never enjoyed high street shopping for clothes and shoes. I'm tall so have to shop for nearly 100% of my clothes and especially shoes/boots on line.

High street stores have loads of petite sections but nothing for tall. Except for a few doing 'long'.

Indeed, high rates have contributed to the loss of some businesses, and the knock on effect is that many towns and cities now have a fair number of empty buildings. If councils lose rent and council tax as a result, the public will end up paying to cover the shortfall. The city in which I live already has three very large abandoned buildings - BHS, Debenhams and John Lewis, and half of the shops in the city centre malls are closed. Even worse, we have a large number of office buildings in and around this city which are also empty, and apparently, some are going to be demolished to avoid the rent and rates cost. Even worse, for some strange reason, the council are still giving the go ahead for building new offices!

I find that as I get older I want to still shop but buy less and of better quality which doesn’t make much difference to my finances, unfortunately, but is better for the environment. Sadly many of the retailers I like are only available to me online so I have to use it. I do enjoy looking round what shops we have left where I live which seen to get fewer and fewer these days. A happy medium for me is to buy what I can locally but use the online facility for browsing and purchasing where I can’t get what I want in a physical store or when the cost is considerably cheaper, as often happens.

Luckily my market town has weathered the covid storm.It is full of independent owned clothes shops and good chain store shops, whitestuff, fat face, joules, mandco.
New shops aren opening too we have a thriving market too.Why because the town resisted the chain stores setting up in direct competition to the independents and people were encouraged to shop local.It can be done.

I don’t know how old you are Yorki but the Debenhams store in Harrogate was previously Buckley’s - where my DF worked in the ‘50’s.

JenniferEccles

Online shopping is convenient up to a point but nothing compares with going into a clothes shop and trying things on. The decision about whether or not to buy is taken there with none of the faff of returning things.

Having said that M and S changing rooms were closed a couple of weeks ago when I wanted to try something on, so they lost a potential sale.
I’m sure I read that shops were allowed to reopen them so I was surprised.

M and S will let you exchange items. Who wants to go in a smelly changing room anyway. I take things home, if not right have never had a problem changing or returning for refund.

The cost of parking and business rates rising have seen off most high streets. The online retailers don't pay the same taxes and therefore it is not a level playing field. I miss BHS ( thanks to that shark Green), Debenhams, Dorothy Perkins, Laura Ashley, Woolworths etc. but I don't want to order clothes, shoes and bras online so only visit an out of town shopping centre if I have to. It is sad but the greedy Councils should have seen it coming when they overcharged on parking and business rates.

Lin52 You clearly live near a shopping centre. not everyone does. For those of us in rural areas, even in the south east, the time snd cost of a 30 mile round trip to a local shopping town, is expensive enough and involves enough hassle to prefer not to do it twice

I must say that I have generally found shop changing rooms to be anything but dirty or smelly compared with other components of a shopping trip - public transport and coffee shops.

MOnica and Lin52.

Re both your posts. Yes, not everyone lives in the town or city. To return M&S items would mean a half hour car journey or an even longer bus trip. A different matter if you live nearby and can just pop an unwanted garment back.

But all my online shopping is returned by parcel courier if I need to. I dont have to go to shops to return it.

I have shopped in our local shops for years, I like getting to know the hard working people who run them. They have different, individual things to browse through and buy, much better than Amazon or Etsy etc. There are times when I use Amazon, especially during the pandemic but then my little shops were closed anyway. I support shop local and rarely shopped in the big stores anyway.

Has Debenhams gone online or has that gone too ?

Debenhams has been taken over by Boohoo who are an online clothing company.

don't forget prior to online shopping we used to have catalogues, where you could order almost anything, pay weekly, earn commission, free returns. OK a little dearer than going to a shop but the same convenience as online shopping today. Quality was a lot better than a lot of items you can buy today online, but who remembers seeing an item of clothing or footwear that they liked, ordering a few different sizes, trying them on at home then returning what didn't fit. My idea of heaven when the children were small

I was quite shocked to see how many of the shops in our High Street have closed recently. We have a large Morrisons & a Waitrose which are doing very well but the small independent shops such as toys, books, jewellers etc are all closed now. Maybe they intend to re-open when things get easier but I would not be surprised if they don't.
I suppose it will mean more charity shops opening & we already have too many of those!
It's very sad!

Thanks Millie. We never hear much here. I used to get stuff online from Debenhams but they were a bit unreliable in the end.

The problems of online are exactly the same as one had with catalogues, not being able to feel the product to judge quality, and uncertain sizing. I can rememeber ordering clothes from a catalogue and sending the lot back because the quality was so poor and I recently did that with H&M because the quality of the sweater I ordered was so poor. So poor I do not know whether it fitted, I had rejected it the moment I took it out of the package it was sent in.

Debenhams signed its own death warrant when it outsourced its stock to concessions that usually already had bigger better outlets on the same High Street. I doubt I have been in Debenhams once in the last 10 years for just that reason. Before then I shopped there regularly.

Is it time all these unused shops should be turned into some sort of housing? Flats, maisonettes, apartments.

Debenham Court.

John Lewis Walk.

BHS Close.