To think this is why the high street is failing?

@Grammarnut
I agree. I've long said shops should be closed on Boxing Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, also all the Bank Holidays. I'd also like the sales to go back to being New Year sales and not Boxing Day sales.

I'm so used to shops being open on a Sunday that I can't see us going back to Sunday closing but we used to manage perfectly well. Shops even used to close on a Wednesday afternoon in the market town I moved to 40 years ago.

We visited Barnstaple earlier this year. All the shops seemed to shut at 3 or 3:30. We managed to find one cafe still open so we could eat. One of the pubs only accepted cash. The town seems to be surviving so perhaps all these long opening hours are not necessary

Which I find really very odd. People are paying £300 a month for their posh cars but they won't fork out £2 to park? I know some car parks are really expensive (eg the Oracle in Reading) but others are pretty reasonable for a city or town centre location.

Although I guess it's not the amount but the hassle if they will only accept payment by app or it's pouring down with rain and you have to mess about at a ticket machine!

That is poor service. I’m a volunteer in a charity shop, fortunately there is short stay parking plus a loading bay. The paid staff help carry donations as well as certain volunteers. We also offer a collection service, it’s limited to one day a week, but there are other charity shops who pick up on different days.

@taxguru Town and City Centres have been with us for many years as well as local shops. Parking charges were introduced decades ago and have been increasing ever since. I know I stopped shopping the in the City Centre once the cost of parking for an hour and going to a department store, became more expensive than amazon delivery.

Not just Saturdays - that was a pretty short term thing due to the dominance of identikit chain stores and soul less shopping centres that were built on previously housing or industrial sites in the town centre. Before the dominance of chain stores, people lived and worked in town centres, so they were constantly "nipping" to the shops for something every day of the week. People lived in terraces right in the town centre or on "estates" that were within walking distances. People were working in shops, offices, banks, print works, factories, warehouses, breweries, etc., right in the centre of towns. Yes, "wives" would go shopping during the day, but also the workers would go shopping in lunch hours and before/after their working day, when shopping hours were much longer and were flexed to be open when the customers were passing as the shop owners needed all the custom they could get and usually wouldn't close at times when there were lots of people passing (except for legal restrictions and half days etc)

High Streets are set up from when people would go out all day Saturday shopping. What people do now is nipping. You nip to the supermarket. If you want some kids clothes or a household item you nip to a retail outlet. Somewhere you can park for free and get in and out fairly quickly. Those who want leisure shopping go to those large garden centres that sell everything from deli food to clothes.

We are moving house, so had a large amount of things to donate to the many charity shops in our main street. Impossible to park as either double yellow lines or a long walk from a carpark. I went early and asked the shop if any of the many staff around, but not serving could help. "Oh no, they are all vulnerable and we cannot let them out to help people." No parking spaces at the back and with traffic wardens milling about, sorry. I asked later if they could collect from our house. No, not able to. Landfill it is then.

@taxguru yes people are voting with feet for a nicer experience.
The malls and outlets are also easier to navigate if you are unsteady on feet or have a pram or wheelchair.
Vaping too. I didn’t encounter any yesterday versus if I walk down street in city it’s so unpleasant.

I think free parking is a large part of the equation.

I've always used supermarkets as it's just more convenient and ( usually ) free parking too.
Our high street doesn't have any shops big enough for a family shop , only for bits like milk or bread etc. So once a week it's a trip to stock up.
I agree it's been made this way over many years
and probably not a good thing , but it would be hard to go back to having different shops for different things as it was in the 70s.
I suppose people can argue we have allowed it happen like this, but market forces and all that have dictated how we shop.

I think that's a reason often given, that the demise of the high-street is because of more women working, people working longer hours etc when modern conveniences mean people have more spare time than their ancestors.

So that's not the reason. The reason is it's simply more convenient.

All the women in my family had to work anyway, as did many of the working class but the reason supermarkets became so popular was because it was more convenient, cheaper, and the quality was usually more consistent.

Even if you had a housewife who didn't work outside the home, given the choice of spending several hours a week going to the butchers, bakers, grocers, hardware store, fishmongers etc compared to an hour or so a week in a supermarket where you could get everything you needed, plus often cheaper...why chose otherwise?

Same with the demise of high-street banks, terrestrial TV, video stores etc.

People don't need to be over-worked or have no free time to value convenience.

But a lot of shoppers these days seem to want the best of both worlds; grocery deliveries, Amazon for virtually everything and online shopping for everything else but on the less frequent occasions when they venture into a high-street store they seem to want a bespoke personalised experience as a valued customer.

And those days are gone for the most part. Unless you want to pay over-the-odds for it.

Yep, people are voting with their feet and they don't "like" the modern High Street experience, so are driving (and parking free) in bigger shopping malls, out of town supermarkets and designer outlets.

Last month we went to a designer outlet when on holiday in the UK. Midweek and it was busy mid to late morning and that was before school holidays. No parking charges, no traffic congestion, no drugs/druggies, no Just Eat cyclists. Just full of "normal" people going shopping. Even better was that most store shop seemed happy, friendly and helpful - they must prefer avoiding the "High St experience" too! We bought more on that visit than we've bought from bricks and mortar shops in years!

Fair enough, I see your point. But at the same time, lots of people aren't "work units" anymore. As per the RR thread, lots of people are retiring early, lots of people aren't working at all - I think we currently have the highest ever proportion (in recent history) of economically inactive people (people not working). We also have (again in recent history) more people working part time or working from home so less time commuting. These people do have time, but they're still not spending their days wandering around bricks and mortar shops. They're still choosing to go to shopping malls, out of town supermarkets and shopping online.

There must be reasons why the traditional High Street isn't attractive to them. I'd say a lot of it is down to councils. Particularly their war on motorists due to high parking charges, one way systems, removal of on street parking, pedestrianisations, etc. Then you add in all the anti-social problems of drunks and druggies and low level street crime being ignored, Just eat cyclists weaving around pedestrians etc. It's simply not a pleasant place to go anymore. Much easier just driving to the out of town supermarket or clicking on Amazon.

So, lots of reasons really. Personally I think an answer would be working towards "localism" to get back to where we were say 50 years ago, when there were shops everywhere. Basic supplies shops on virtually every street corner, with larger and more specialist shops in the precincts and bigger shopping streets. I suppose it's something like the new idea of "15 minute cities". I've lived in our village for nearly 30 years and seen the demise. It used to be vibrant with all kinds of shops, 3 pubs, 3 churches, a school, GP surgery, chemist, 3 petrol stations and library. Now all it has is a petrol station that's a Spar. As one thing closed, it had a knock on effect, fewer people came, and so other businesses closed, and so on. I.e. the chemist never stood a chance once the GP surgery closed. The newsagents and post office never stood a chance once the school closed. Without the school, newsagents, post office, chemist, etc., the greengrocers, butchers and both grocery shops never stood a chance. And so on. It's the ripple effect. Our village that was once bustling is now deserted day and night - just the occasional rambler or dog walker. There's no way of reversing that. The same is happening in smaller towns, and even some cities. It's the "drip drip" of things closing and people going elsewhere - it's been happening since the 80s (maybe even the 70s in a few places where out of town supermarkets opened back then).

We also have to remember that chain stores caused a lot of small independent stores to close back as far back as the 60s and 70s, which extended into the 80s and 90s. I remember people complaining 30 years ago that most High Streets were "identikit" with the same chain stores. What goes around comes around. Those chain stores have now been kicked out by out of town supermarkets and the internet.

I went to Trafford centre yesterday and it was so very busy. So some in person shopping is giving people what they want. Hours are 12-6 Sunday and late nights all week then restaurants open even later. I’ve not been for a year and there were several new stores like Sephora (had a queue system outside and bouncers) and new restaurants.

These are the results of seeing people as economic units which produce for the economy, rather than the economy being for the people, which would result in a greater variety of work and shopping practices

And we're back to the idea of decrapifying work!

Online shopping is chicken and egg.

People shop online because their local town centre doesn't stock what they need, and then their local town centre doesn't stock what they need because people buy online.

Some shops are very much shop windows for their online offering - eg they'll have a particular item but it won't be in the colour I want or the size, but I can see the cut, material, etc and then I'll order it online in the colour and size I want.

Yes, I understand. It's a case of if you want it, use it. Presumably we do not want specialist shops any more. I was arguing that neo-liberal policies have shaped shopping habits. We use supermarkets, which sell everything, because it is convenient and we do not have much time. Most work long hours - not just shopworkers - and most have their free-time disagregated i.e. they do not have week-ends as guaranteed time off. These are the results of seeing people as economic units which produce for the economy, rather than the economy being fo the people, which would result in a greater variety of work and shopping practices.

@Grammarnut

But the downside is the death of small shops in town

Small shops were closing down long before internet shopping simply because of big supermarkets starting to sell everything and Argos. Yes, in the case of camera shops, Supermarkets and Argos may not have sold the "top of range" specialist gear, but they sold the bread and butter stuff, i.e. the bulk of the sales, and without a constant stream of "normal" customers wanting basic cameras, no High Street specialist camera shop is going to survive on the occasional customer wanting something special. Same applies to lots of other things, i.e. supermarkets selling basic clothing, supermarkets selling fresh meat, veg and fish causing the demise of greengrocers, fishmongers, butchers, etc. You can go right back to the 80s and 90s to trace the smaller shops closing down.

Changing shop hours is a balance of interests. Some people go clothes shopping at nine in the morning, shift workers getting off work at 2 a.m. might like to shop then (the rationale behind 24-hour supermarkets). But shop workers also have homes, families, the need/desire to go shopping at a convenient time. Ditto bank employees. It is also the case that the majority of shop workers are women, who will not be safe travelling alone late at night.
Currently, shops open roughly between 8 a.m. and 8 o'clock where I live, apart from supermarkets, which open till 10 p.m. (except Sundays, and being shut entirely on Easter and Christmas Day - personally, I would support a return to being shut on Good Friday and Boxing Day as well). I presume workers do shifts to accommodate these hours, since hours are regulated nationally. These hours seem super-reasonable to me. No-one desperately needs to shop at midnight (and if there is such a pressing need there are 24-hour supermarkets and a rota of all-night chemists, and the odd garage shop will be open).
The problem with town shopping centres is not the hours shops are open (they are open 8-22) but that people have less time generally to shop and also have been seduced into shopping online (catalogue shopping without the guarantee the goods will be what they seem) by the ease and (relative) quickness. There is a great deal that is good about shopping online. For example, Amazon (which has a massive grip on internet shopping) enables writers who would be unable to get work published to sell their books; also, small retailers or one-item sellers can reach a larger audience than before e.g. vintage clothes sellers, craft-workers etc. But the downside is the death of small shops in town - it is no longer possible to go to a good camera shop and get advice, because they have shut; the internet took their sales, being cheaper.
The direct outcome will be higher online prices, once physical outlets for some goods disappear. This is the law of supply and demand. If the internet is the only place to buy then prices will cease to be cheaper.
I don't have an answer, except that people do value personal contact when shopping, so instead of installing self-checkouts, shops should employ more staff, there to help and advise, to have knowledge of the products they sell (not just what it says on the box), so that shopping becomes a good experience rather than a chore.
If we want only convenience then contactless shopping is the future. It's also the future I think we will get.
If we want it otherwise then an entire shift in economic policy is needed: a retreat from globalization and neo-liberal policies which treat people as economic units, worthless unless they are economically active (hence the derogatory terms for women who stay at home with their children). Not going to get that without a revolution.

Given the nature of UK weather (frequent rain), I’m always surprised that shopping arcades aren’t commoner. I mean, shopping is a way to get out of the house and stretch your legs when the weather is crap, but you need a roof to do it under!

I'd suggest a shake up of high street opening times has been needed for a long time. To my mind a later opening time as well as later closing would make far more sense including banks (talking to you santander). Who realistically is going clothes shopping at 9am in the town centre. But the office workers finishing at 5pm are more likely to do it after work.

Old school shop hours were fine in the 80's where one member of the family often didn't go out to work. Now with both working full time as well as other family commitments, going into town shopping on the morning bus no longer happens.

Which is a perfectly reasonable desire.

Any that don't are breaking employment law on all employees working minimum wage. But again this isn't the customers issue. Don't want to work beyond your contracted hours. Start cashing up 30 mins early and don't serve anybody else. At eg 5pm. Walk to your locker, get your coat and go home. Let the manager deal with the fallout. You are only ever a number.

@ATenShun What chains pay staff to cash up?

That is a management issue rather than a customer or worker issue. If the staff member finishes at eg 5pm then the tills should close at 4:30 and the management deal with the fallout. This should be conveyed to the customer.

I do know of some businesses where the staff do get paid to cash up. It is just their desperation to get home that they chose to cash up early.