Disappearing shopsops

With a few exceptions, in my book many of those closing were overrated and overpriced, with latterly quite poor customer service. They did not move with the times, embrace new shopping trends/habits, and they really did take their customers for granted.

This is the problem of malls in the US - failing like crazy as they follow an old business model.

Google "Rhode island providence mall converted to housing" - it is a wonderful mall converted to small apartments

My idea of shops being used for housing is because ‘they’ seem to think that is how our town centres will evolve, cafes, bars, coffee shops, just places for meeting and socialising, not shopping.

The people will just buy online I suppose.

Very true galaxy.

£20 ? Gosh! However when I tried to do a big shop, as I would when going to a shopping centre, the postage charged was beginning to mount up and then if I needed to return some things again it would be adding up. I spend longer online trying to shop end up not buying anything feel exasperated and sometimes exhausted. at least my coffee and cake break in my own little kitchen, does not cost extra. I did try paying for delivery for the year with one company but it only just worked out as I felt I needed to buy from them alone again felt restricted and not so happy with items, but returns were already paid for.

Good and bad online and in shops.

I think we also forget to calculate the cost of shopping in real life shops, I live in a village away from a town centre. Petrol and car park charges would cost me £20. I would use an out of town with no parking charges rather than a town centre. If people are shopping online surely that frees up some of the road clogging traffic.

I made a few purchases online for things I needed, but not been happy with any. The returns postage made me put up and shut up. Companies offering free returns make me feel I’m paying for that possibility already. I need shoes desperately now we can get out more, but have lost the desire to shop.

I don’t believe that’s the only reason they are closing galaxy it is part of the reason, which is a circular problem as shops close there is less to buy, so less shopping, more shops close but also here we have high parking fees, high shop rates and too many cars clogging up the roads
So sad to see them die They were far more than shops to buy in, they were a social hub a place to meet friends and look and touch and enjoy now it’s all moving towards a more insular society sitting in your sitting room glaring at a screen

But people arent buying that's why they are closing. It's a fairly standard regeneration model for many councils, mixture of leisure and housing.

gillT57 I bought a pair of joggers from Matalan online which looked lovely on their model and cost £10 with postage £4.99 when they arrived they were baggy in the wrong places and didn’t look good on me, no fault of the product or the model The postage for sending them back was £4.99 making the two postages as much as the product itself and not a viable way to shop If you have a pretty average figure and spare dish it’s probably a great way to shop and I do shop online for other things but for clothes it’s just not viable If I could have gone into the store and tried them on (with a dozen other things) I could have rejected them for nothing
lin52 I m sorry you live in such an awful town, I ve never been in a smelly changing room
Yes turn them into housing and have more people with no shops to buy stuff from calandergirl ??? I actually am pretty sure that’s what will happen to our town centres sadly

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

Has Debenhams gone online or has that gone too ?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.