To think this is why the high street is failing?

Agree the rates and rents are extortionate as councils are cash strapped but with the cost of living many businesses can't afford that or pass costs on to customers who can't or won't pay when online's cheaper.

Covent Garden has lost a few. There used to be a lovely cheap vegetarian cafe called Food for Thought that closed after decades because of this. I also miss the Banana bookshop and Crocs shop amongst others.

Every shop that closes where I live seems to be replaced by a coffee shop. We used to have 5 greengrocers and 4 butchers, now we have no greengrocers and one butcher. We used to have 4 shoe shops, now we have one very expensive independent one. There used to be 4 shops selling children's clothes, now there are none. If you want to buy kids' clothes, you have to do a round trip of 12 miles, minimum.

But you could drink a gallon of coffee without visiting the same coffee shop twice.

A nearby former Tesco Metro, now Tesco Express AKA Bloody Expensive, has had to reopen a manned till and label the self-checkout area "Baskets only" because there isn't enough room for trolleys, even the smaller ones. It also gets cluttered with customers' own two- and four-wheeled shopping trolleys.

The local demographic includes a large proportion of older and less mobile people. Who use supermarket trollies and wheeled shoppers.

Tesco evidently looked at the amounts being spent and the number of items going through the tills and decided that the store's customers were young and able-bodied people dashing in and out for a few top-up items.

Turns out they were, to a significant extent, wrong

In our local small Tesco branch if you use self checkout and want a receipt you have go to the manned till !!!! whilst there are people being served.
I have stopped using the self checkout now at all shops as it means someone is now out of work

Is it a case of whether people want to pay, rather than if they can pay?

Wage stagnation over the last couple of decades, while the price of eg parking has increased with inflation, means that a lot of costs are now relatively more expensive compared to income. Disposable incomes are lower.. Quite a lot of people now need things to be cheap because they simply won’t be able to afford them otherwise.

Is she going to call my boss to complain about the overpaid overtime I do? I doubt it. I suspect you mean "unpaid overtime". I'm willing to bet that your hourly rate still exceeds hers, even with the overtime, that you have more autonomy over your work, that you won't see a deduction from your salary if you're five or 10 minutes late for work. Just don't complain to/about the front-line worker.

I've been gone for 14 years. Wow how times have changed. This sounds absolutely dreadful. I worked lots of retail before I left (16-21 years old, 2005-2010) and we would've been crucified had we cashed up half an hour before closing... Or refused to serve customers at tills...

Same with banks. I have banked digitally for years and years. I don't need telling that online is convenient--I know.

In the weeks following a recent bereavement, I needed to go to an actual branch to sort things out, things that can't be done on the app and which they tell you you have to go to a branch to do. Ours is 18 miles away. They meet you aggressively at the door with an IPad and demand why you're there, why you haven't used the app (because I'm having problems with the app), what your problem is (the day after a bereavement I opened an account and accidentally used my maiden, not married, name. 'Why would you do that?' Because I hadn't slept for days and my mother had died the previous night).

An elderly couple, hunched over, moving with obvious discomfort, were asked why they weren't using the app. 'Because our eyesight is bad and we have bad arthritis in our fingers.'

Same with the post office. 'Why are you here?' Because I have a complicated postal query. 'Why aren't you using the machine?' Because I have a complicated postal query. It's like being in a Soviet-Era store.

The point of Revolut is to have a perfect exchange rate and no fee on your card. By paying in sterling with your card at a high street exchange rate you’re adding several steps to the process and losing out on the exchange rate.

@MiamiWindMachine what are you arguing about, she offered to do it so what is the problem? I bet you find life really hard work 😆😆

That's not why the high street is failing.

The high street is failing because so much has moved online that physical shops have cut staffing to the bone to save costs. Because businesses don't get price capped energy bills and running the shop with heat and light is punatively expensive. Because 14 years of Tory policies cut local government funding to the bone and so councils are charging higher rates. Because it's easier to have 80 people in a warehouse serving a national online shop than those same 80 staff across physicaol shops serving a smaller demographic.

You're seeing the end result of those pressures, not the cause of the high street dying.

I agree. I also find things like shoe shops a right pain because 9 times out of 10 the beautiful shoes they have out on display (that your child then falls in love with) aren't available in their size or they have seemingly very limited stock and they bring out designs for you to try that are nothing like those on display, and they say "we can order it online for you to collect in 3 days if you want" etc. etc.... I feel like shopping is just harder than it needs to be on the high street.

Email the businesses to complain.
I couldn't care less about my local city's high street. I haven't been there for 15 years and can't think of anything that would make me want to do the drive, find and pay for extortionate parking, to traipse round some shitty shops when I can just get any item delivered to my door.

The trolley self checkout area is too small and not everyone can place the trollies near their till. The bagging area is too small for a full trolley so things keep falling off. The bagging area is also at a ridiculously low level and I have a bad back which makes it impossible for me to use. Then you have all the issues of the standard self checkout.

Waitrose is not like this at all!

Yes it might inconvenience customers but why should I work for free when the supermarket I work for makes literally hundreds of millions. Also, these high-paid executives, whose obscene pay levels we are expected to welcome because they're "creating jobs" almost always have as a major part of their remuneration something about "efficiency" which translates into reducing jobs, disguised as "productivity increases".

I am perfectly capable of using self checkout. I just don't see the point. The other day I had 5 items and had to call the assistant over 4 times. The machine won't accept an empty shopping bag without staff approval, I had alcohol and paracetamol, the birthday card wouldn't register in the bagging area.

I feel your pain, @Seeline. Self service checkouts hate me, they seem to delight in doing all the above and then more, like just refusing to scan an item or two and constantly accusing me of putting an "unexpected item in the bagging area".

My malign influence even extends to neighbouring checkouts. In one supermarket, the man at the one next to me kept being told to place his produce on the scales every time he scanned the pack of 3 pairs of pants he was trying to buy...

So to hire more staff and give better service therewith be higher prices? Same as 'the government should pay and provide...'means higher taxes

But do people want to pay?

Nope

Our local Tesco has started Scan and Go. Nobody wanted it and nobody uses it so hopefully it will disappear soon.

Why would you try to buy foreign currency with a Revolut card? The whole point of it is to have a perfect exchange rate.

Oxford Street in London used to be an experience but it's chains and souvenir shops.

But it's catch-22. For example I wanted a bit of kitchen equipment. A utensil. The only place I could buy it in my high street was B&M. Fine, only there is a B&M store in an out of town shopping centre nearer me. No parking costs.

Where would I go? It's a no brainer. I buy loads online simply because there is nowhere near me that sells the items anymore. Wilkinsons going was the final straw for our high street.

@MiamiWindMachine I never said it was your problem, I just gave you an explanation for her actions. Which bit are you confused by?