To think this is why the high street is failing?

I agree with this. To me, the self-checkouts are such an infuriating experience I avoid them like the plague.

Also not many people had cars

There'll be fewer and fewer places without a mobile signal as time passes. The analogue phone network is being shut down over the next few years, so all phones will have to be digital/internet. That opens up the way for mobile signals in places where there isn't currently a mobile internet signal. Having said that, the mobile network is also being expanded and improved with 5g etc. Within a few years, there won't be anywhere that can't get the internet, not even remote places. For the very few most remotest of places, there'll be satellite such as Starlink. People living/working will need the internet wherever they live and work, so provision will have to be made for them, for residential and business premises. Not having access to the internet won't be an option.

Where I live it's not just the high street that is dying out it's the night life too. I have sons in their late 20s who rarely go out and when they do it's never that busy and the night clubs are shutting everywhere. Hospitality seems to be suffering too.
I agree op that finding anyone to actually serve you anymore is difficult too

I remember Hyper - used to get my DMs from there and then pop down the road to the cinema! Memories 😁

I think we'll see the end of small coins within the next few years. There's no need for them really anymore. I'd imagine we're pretty close to only needing the 50p and £1 coin as there's not much denominated in less than 50p these days. With another few years of inflation, we could be close to things being in multiples of £1 as minimum. Maybe in a decade's time, all we'd "need" would be £1 coins. All the smaller coins can be withdrawn, maybe the 1p, 2p and 5p could be withdrawn now with everything rounded to 10p. And then 10p and 20p withdrawn in say 5 years time with everything rounded to 50p and so on.

Wouldn't surprise me if all coins were withdrawn within 20 years or so, with the £5 note being the minimum currency denomination for cash transactions.

I suppose if you’re outside of a city etc, somewhere really rural, no phone signal etc (some remote parts of Sicily apparently) then yeah, suppose so. Fair point

it’s the bloody shrapnel coins that end up being such a nuisance

Yes, @taxguru is right. It's like when people complain about lack of butcher, green grocer etc.... My dad was talking about this the other day. He grew up in London during and after the war. His point was that his mum had to stop and do the shopping for the night on the way home from work because they didn't have a large kitchen and they certainly didn't have refrigeration. So the local butcher and baker and all the rest of it was needed and it was all walkable - between the bus stop and home and with one bag of shopping for one night's food. But his mother, who was a keen cook but also had a full time job, was thrilled when she could buy a fridge and abandon daily shopping.

We also shouldn't forget that town centres dominated by retail was a very short term thing. People used to live in town centres and there were all kinds of workplace in the town centre, such as breweries, printworks, factories, car garages, warehouses, cinemas/theatres, professional offices, etc., as well as a huge range of shops, big and small, independent and chains. It was the 70s and 80s when retail took over, particularly chain stores moved in which forced out the smaller independents. At the same time "non retail" moved out to industrial estates etc., and with the closure of small independent shops, the "living" accommodation above got abandoned as the ground floor shops were knocked together for the bigger chains.

Come the 90s and 00s, "High St" retail suffered by the out of town supermarkets, retail parks, shopping mall, etc.

Then into the 10's and 20's, a further kick in the teeth was online shopping.

It's all evolution. But the High Street of 20 years ago was absolutely nothing like the High Street of 40 years ago. Big chains killed off smaller independents and now the internet and big supermarkets are killing off those chains. As I say, it's evolution. Town centres need to get back to being where people can live and work, and harking back to the days of retail dominance isn't the answer. As a few people have said, Universities are breathing new life into lots of town centres, mainly because the students live in them rather than on out of town housing estates so are within easy walking distance of bars, cafes, and other amenities.

I think you're missing a key point - it's much much cheaper and better for Sainsburys or whatever for you to do your shopping online. They can store the bulk of their items in cheaper, out of the way places and not in expensive towns. They don't need to worry about the same "user experience" of a store - ie good flooring and lighting and nicely labelled shelving etc. They don't have to have loads of employees. They can control stock better - eg, so many of us will actively look for the longest use-by date on milk and leave those with only 3 or 4 days behind. Some of that gets wasted. They don't have that problem online - their online packers are taking the stuff that is closest to use by first. Every time. etc etc etc.

There are some benefits to them if you shop in person such as spontaneous shopping etc - but even that is being cleverly managed online. And even more importantly, they can adapt what they offer you at the checkout online so that you a) are more likely to buy because it's the kind of stuff you like and b) they can manage their stock better by showing you discounts on things that are close to expiy or whatever.

So no, the shops don't want you to come in. They provide the service because they have a large enough customer base who wants/needs it and because it's helpful to their overall brand and marketing. But it's not something they do because they WANT you to shop there.

YANBU

I left Tesco because no one came when the self service machine messed up. I just left all my items because I was fed up.

This thread is giving me many trips down memory lane! I used to love Hyper Hyper. Still have a couple of tops from there (bit musty now, but can’t bring myself to throw them). And Kensington Market across the road

The Chinese students in my city keep the city centre going.

They are the ones with the money, the ones that use the market to but fresh produce instead of one of the chains. They buy from the pricey independents .

I don't know how non university towns cope .

But that's not what's happened. People have given up faffing around with "Unknown item detected in basket, please wait for assistance," and so on and just order online, and then the shops say, "Oh, come and use your high street, the shops are empty and we can't survive."

If I want to learn to use new technology I'll take a course. I didn't go to the shops for an IT lesson.

I don't think you what ignorant means. I'm not remotely ignorant. I'm very clever and carry a huge amount of data of all sorts in my brain. I am well read and an expert in my field. Can't be arsed to use the self-scanner though.
Pig-headed, maybe?

There's similar here. There's a village a dozen miles away that has a Co-op supermarket, a cafe, a butcher's and a greengrocer's side by side. People drive there to use the cafe, the butcher's and the greengrocer's and the Co-op benefits from the footfall.

I was just racking my brain trying to remember the name of that gorgeous pudding they did. Strawberry scrunch!
I used to work as a beauty therapist at the Sanctuary! Another lost gem (I’d long gone by then, but think the rent became astronomical)

I know it's not your problem, but if cashing up takes her 15 -20 mins then she's obviously going to be annoyed if she can only start doing that 8pm.

Some retailers do pay staff for opening and closing though, knowing realistically each takes about 15 minutes .

I'd have thought M&S would be one of these to be honest.

Yup. You get to a certain stage where you simply cannot cope with new tech.

I think people possibly only realise that when they've experienced it themselves or have seen a family member or friend struggling.

I can cope with a certain amount of tech, but some things are now just too much. My late husband was older than me. He used a debit card, but didn't trust credit cards. I got one at a point when certain hotels would only accept a credit card and not a debit card for some reason. (That was more than 20 years ago.)

I live in a terraced block of three houses. I'm in my 60s, but the youngest homeowner here. During lockdown all three women in this block became widows. (No Covid deaths.)

One woman had her daughter able to organise everything for her. My neighbour and her sons are dyslexic and couldn't cope with doing everything online. Fortunately, lockdown had just ended, so I was allowed to take her down to the funeral parlour.

My husband died at the point where we were only allowed 20 to a funeral. Everything had to be done via phone, email or online. (The one exception was signing the form to say that I'd pay for the funeral - funnily enough, I had to do that in person at the funeral parlour and then had to pay upfront.)

It took me all my time, in spite of the fact that I had previous experience of organising funerals. It sounds stupid, but having to access an online catalogue for coffins was dreadful. It's bad enough when you're sitting at the undertaker's looking through a catalogue, but at least you can ask a human being questions then. When you're in a state like that, coping with an online catalogue really isn't so easy.

I love shopping of all kinds.

I like browsing online and ordering several items and then keeping what fits. Over time, I have learned what shapes and sizes suit me.

I loved the older ‘real’ shops too. Does anyone remember the chaos of Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road, or the Hyper Hyper shop in Kensington?

In regards to modern high street shopping, I will never not be excited and amazed by the Uniqlo tills. Forgive me!

@Nadeed I just did a very quick google research and I see that cameras, whether used by people or AI, are supposed to look for behaviours, mannerisms etc vs profiling although I wonder if some profiling, based on actual data (vs vague impressions people have), might be overlaid as well? It's interesting, I don't know. Also that some even use face recognition technology (not sure how that would work).

@ComeOnThenFanny

Exactly

Its another inconvenience

And in the days when retailers treated their staff like human beings, she’d probably have been only too happy to wait until after closing to start cashing up, in addition to coming in 15 minutes early each day to sort all the cash out ready to start serving at opening time. But in the days where staff are expected to do twice as much work for half the pay, are given zero support from their managers and are generally treated like shit, why would she choose to give them an extra 45 minutes each day, free of charge? I can’t say I blame her.

Sorry, hadn't seen this when I answered originally. To answer your question, I don't know. From a technology perspective, I am sure they have loads of data on what kind of people are higher risk and more likely to be stealing. So, theoretically, using technology and good datasets would get a profile that is far more accurate than some kind of slightly dodgy instinctive "black teenagers are the worst" that we sadly so often see.

I mean, I'm assuming that to use my Boots example, teenage girls of any race are the highest risk for petty thieving. I have no idea in a supermarket. I do know that around here, many of our smaller stores now keep the more expensive high ticket items like meat away from the main shelves as they found the theft is so high. I'd like to think that it's people who are desperate vs a particular age/race/gender but I have no idea. It would be very interesting to see data on this.

Yes - it happens in "real life" too. Stores like Boots are a good place to watch it happening. Check out the security guards in the areas where the cosmetics are... they will often profile/target specific people who they think look "dodgy" and follow them around because shop lifting of small items is so prevalent (teenagers are particularly concerning for them). The bigger stores like Waitrose or Asda or Sainsbury are moving to doing this with technology but the basic premise of profiling to understand who is supposedly riskier, remains. I have no idea HOW sophisticated it is so far, but I imagine it will get more and more sophisticated very quickly.