So many shops closing, so much online shopping

My local Klondyke garden centre only has one width of strimmer cord.

I can get it in screwfix if I order it in!

Monica, that's not strictly true. John Lewis has lots of concessions in store M&S and Next have a few and a couple of independents in our town also have a few.

I think thigs are starting to go round in a circle. We are house hunting some way from home and also have gone on holday around the country and we are finding that some towns are reinventing themselves as places to go for independent shopping. Small shops, middle to higher middle price ranges, but collecting independent cafes and the like round them.

These include places like Oakham, Thrapston and St Neots, which despite being relatively small has Waterstones, Waitrose, M&S Food and a Lounge among the vape shops and Turkish hairdressers, suggesting it has hit rock bottom and is on the way up.

GN members living in these towns may say I have misread the town, but Oakham is definitely up market, but the food shops......

Stamford in Lincolnshire had a lot last time I was there, M0nica, also Hebden Bridge, which I love.

Parts of Norwich and Manchester are also worth a look.

Astitchintime

It is just the same in the town near me - no Debeenhams, BHS, Woolworths, Wilko, to name but a few. I hate shopping online and absolutely refuse to buy clothes and shoes from anywhere but a proper shop!
Even fabric shops are on the decline and an order I placed recently for a customer's garment was such poor quality I couldn't use it.

I must admit I didn’t understand part of your comment, Astitchintime- the stores you name, apart from Wilko, don’t exist anymore in any towns, not just the one near you.

One thing they did do at one of our shopping centres is shut a large department store down and replace it with a very fancy public library with lots of computers and online facilities to study genealogy. Now that I like but it is unusual.

BHS and Woolies have been gone years snd years, Debenhams and Wilko more recently Looks like a lot of WHSmith are off too that’s our only PO in town gone if ours goes There are some small corners shops with PO counters but none less than a 15 minute walk away for me
I really miss a wander round town trying on a few things and maybe a coffee meet up what fun is there for able bodied to sit at home waiting for a parcel that might or might not arrive trying your item on and thinking well that doesn’t look good or that doesn’t fit then having to trudge to the nonexsistant PO to send it back and wait in for another parcel

I mostly shop either online or in local retail parks with disabled parking next to the shops. I live on the outskirts of a small city, but the local council have pedestrianised the city centre, and basically made it a no-go area. It appears to be full of cafes and charity shops. I had to buy my husband a new electric razor at short notice this week, and trying to find a shop locally that had what he wanted in stock was a nightmare. (Out of the centre Asda came to my rescue).

Many of the clothes we try on in shops have been tried on by others, I find garments bought on line are in original packaging. Having worked in a dress department of a large fashion store I used to cringe at some people’s personal hygiene 😩

astitchintime
Joel and Sons have quality fabrics. Not cheap.
Joel & Son Fabrics
020 7724 6895

g.co/kgs/Ep7wzPJ

Meant to say, both a real shop and mail order. The people I've dealt with there really do know their fabrics.

What a great idea nanna8
Nothing so clever here. Although away from the centre there is a library and leisure centre.

Our little town centre sounds like yours Salti

There are still a few independent shops (not clothes) but they are never
busy and I fear they are struggling.

At a time when things seemed very depressing, 10 yrs ago,
DH and others decided to raise funds by selling communty shares to
buy a large shop which had lain empty for years and opened a community shop and resource.
It's a place to go for organic veg, good food, good coffee, home baking, community lunch with live music, local crafts and a meeting place for walking and cycling and babies' groups. Several language groups meet there. It's become very popular and other towns are doing similar things.
There's a volunteer committee who employ staff and recruit volunteers so I volunteer on the till one morning a week. It's great way to fend off loneliness which is a modern scourge.
Sadly DH died 4 years ago and isn't here to see how successful his idea has proved. 😥

Where I live is badly affected by Bluewater shopping centre being nearby. We do have a few good independent stores which I try to use but the town is unsettling now with a very different atmosphere to a few years ago. I shop a lot more online than before Covid

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202502/medium-136822-1000023232.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202502/medium-983952-1000023231.jpg

Here are a couple of photos of our community store.
I agree luluaugust
As the people stop shopping, the shops close and are boarded up and steel gated shops on a pedestrian precinct are places to avoid.

That looks lovely Grammaretto..Such a gorgeous green colour

I love your shop Grammaretto!
😍
It looks like the early days of our food co-op when we lived in America.

When we visited 25 years later - it was basically a supermarket.
But still going, still successful.

I can only shop in one supermarket, and I don’t drive. There is a bus to a bigger town once a week but the one bus means you’re away four hours.
We have a butcher and a DIY shop, a very small market, a bookshop and a music shop. Nothing else but charity and expensive clothes shops.
I don’t think city people have any idea of life elsewhere.

As high street shops are closing down please be very wary of Facebook posts.

There are countless sob stories about couples having to close their beautiful businesses down after many years. Do not be fooled into parting with your money for lacy bras, hand crafted leather bags, stained glass ornaments, teddy bears like highland cattle, jumpers and cardigans etc etc. they are all scams with cheap tat coming from China.

Their fake replies saying how pleased they are with their purchases are pathetic, completely daft names. 🤣🤣

watermeadow

I can only shop in one supermarket, and I don’t drive. There is a bus to a bigger town once a week but the one bus means you’re away four hours.
We have a butcher and a DIY shop, a very small market, a bookshop and a music shop. Nothing else but charity and expensive clothes shops.
I don’t think city people have any idea of life elsewhere.

Indeed, city people don't have any idea of rural life.

Shopping certainly has changed to shopping online and I love it. So much more convenient, more choice, easy to compare prices, examine purchases at home, always open, no travelling long distances and wasting time only to not be able to find what you want and mostly no quibble returns. What's not to like? I always feel very uncomfortable if I go into the small independent shops, I don't like the feeling of being watched and always fell obliged to buy something. Of course I don't always buy something but I do feel that the owner/ assistant expects me to if I go in and gave a browse. Long live online shopping. I don't think it will ever go back to how it was.

I tried on a number of pairs of shoes in an independent shop sale yesterday. They didn't have what I liked in my size but sourced it from their other branch. I paid in advance with the promise of a refund if they aren't right.
I paid with cash I am old fashioned
This morning I had a phonecall from the manager to say they had forgotten to give me my change!

I also had my watchstrap repaired for free at the Jeweller in the same town.

At the coffee shop, I managed to forget my walking stick and the girl clearing the tables came running after me! A shopping experience to relish.

Let’s face it, life is constantly changing.
If GN had existed in the 60’s and 70’s there would have been endless threads on the rise of supermarkets, no more Mr Bun the Baker or Mr Green the Grocer, no more blue sugar paper-wrapped dry goods. Then Green Shield Stamps came and went.
No more genteel ladies’ outfitters or milliners and the Four Candles sketch would go over most Gen Z heads!
Hardening of the attitudes is a pernicious disease of the elderly - we should guard against it!

That’s true RosieandherMaw 👏🏻👏🏻
Towns that manage to retain a lot of independent shops are the upmarket lovely towns in well off areas.
I once visited both towns mentioned upthread, Oakham in Rutland and Stamford in Lincolnshire and they are really nice places to visit and shop, particularly Stamford I thought.We were just passing through but it would have been good to have seen more of them.
A lot of towns don’t fall into that bracket and you’d only see a Costa, Greggs and the usual suspects in them.Not that there’s anything wrong with Costa and Greggs, they do what they do well.

Grammaretto I think, as your comment shows, shopping in person can be very satisfying. Both my parents had shops - a ladies clothes shop - bride's mother and evening wear type (Dad's business) and a haberdashery and baby linen shop (Mum's).
I worked as a "Saturday girl" and genuinely understand the lovely warm relationships that develop in good retail.
I'd like to think that good retailers will live on but wonder if they will have to be quite specialised to survive in future.

Three independent shoe shops I used to buy my shoes from have closed and there's no decent haberdashery anywhere near.

I went to 6 places locally (in person) looking for screws of particular dimensions to match the thread on another. ...The sixth place was amazing. It was a trade store situated behind a busy factory, using their entry(!) in an old industrial area. They didn't have the length that I thought I needed but gave me four screws to try. It was a family business. I do hope it will survive! I was SO happy I went back with a fancy box of biscuits. 😃