To suggest that people should buy less stuff

Yup, it’s what supermarkets did back in the 70s and 80s. Get rid of competition then raise prices and screw suppliers.

What is really interesting is how if you actually compare Amazon and your local shop, you’ll often find your local shop is cheaper.
it wasn’t like that 10 years ago. Amazon has tricked us into thinking it’s always cheapest. Once everyone believes that, they can put their prices up. And they do.

This.
and does it really make anyone happier? No.

I hate seeing all the shops full of absolute shite when I go into town. People selling cheap plastic bags, purses, phone protectors, plastic shoes, plastic clothes.

It's grim to know it's all just gonna bury us alive one day, or fill up the seas, or get burnt and fill the sky with shit.

Surely you're not being told anything you don't know, or haven't worked out yourself. I can't believe people are stupid enough to not realise they are falling for advertising shite and keep buying into all the consumerism

As I say, it's a vicious circle. Before small shops were hammered with higher costs and unfair competition, you would have been able to find a shop stocking what you wanted. Now, because you're not using the small shops, the few that remain are struggling and likely to close too, meaning even less things able to be bought locally.

Trouble is that a lot of people don't even try to shop locally - some will never have been in their local shop(s) so won't know what they stock, their prices, etc. They just lazily default to Amazon for online or for Wickes for DIY or Halfords for cars/bikes.

We had a bike shop in our village. For a small shop, they had a really broad range of bikes and were competitively priced, but the owner just couldn't get enough locals through the doors to actually look at his range and his prices! He used to get really annoyed when local people brought in bikes bought from Halfords or online to be serviced/repaired that he knew cost the same as the bikes he sold which were better quality! They'd just "assumed" he'd not have the range or that his bikes would be a lot more expensive!

It's that kind of thing that small shops are up against. Some customers seem to be frightened of actually going into a shop and asking for something and seem to prefer the anonymity of huge impersonal shops or laziness of online ordering.

That;s up to them, but they lose the moral high ground to whinge when the High Street is dying and small shops are disappearing at a rapid rate.

But ultimately if the high street doesn't have the item I need then I can't spend that money there.

Do you prefer it when income from rates and rents drops so that there's less money to spend on local services, or when boarded up shops attract street drinkers and drug addicts, or when the only things opening in town are things like Turkish barbers and nail bars, which are often a cover for money laundering? Thriving high streets are more of a deterrent to shop lifters.

It's an established fact that every £ spent locally remains in the local economy benefitting local communities instead of disappearing off to line the coffers of chains.

I don't disagree with you about choice, but it's a vicious circle. If shops were confident that stock would flow reliably through their stores, they'd invest more in stock, and there would be more choice.

Plus of course there's the insane amount that councils are charging for town centre car parking.

(edited for additions)

There is a small hardware shop in a town local to me.
It was at risk of closing down and lots of people were on Facebook saying use it or lose it......I actually find it's cheaper to buy hoover bags there than elsewhere however the type and frequency of items I need from there is pretty sparse.
On the last few times I've been there I've bought
Hoover bags, descaler, tupperware containers, screw type things to hold shelves in place etc. It's my first port of call for those items....but I buy them extremely infrequently. ...

It's a vicious circle. Before the domination of chain stores, retail parks, huge supermarkets, etc., everyone really could get everything from local/independent shops. The proliferation of chain stores and out of town retail massively damaged that. Now the internet is here that is damaging the viability of chain stores and out of town retail!

It's noticeable that small independent shops are still in existence in places that don't have retail parks. Lots of large villages and small towns, in, say, the Cotswalds and Yorkshire still have independent hardware shops for example - simply because the big sheds like Wickes and Homebase never opened in those more rural areas.

Trouble is that once a B&Q or Wickes opens, then it's the death knell for independent hardware stores within driving distance. Same with Pets at Home which will close most private pet shops within driving distance.

The internet is just finishing off what chain stores and out of town retail started 2/3 decades ago.

Smaller shops simply can't survive with competition from the internet, chain stores and out of town retail. Overheads are too high, they're paying more business rates per square metre of space than Asda or Amazon because "High St retail" space is charged higher for business rates than warehouse space - the rules simply havn't changed to reflect the changing shopping landscape over the past few decades. Rents are insanely high. Then you have all the local councils trying their hardest to ruin their High Streets by stupidly high car park charges, one way systems, pedestrianised/bus only zones, etc.

If "we" want to keep smaller independent stores, then "we" have to support them. On an individual level, that means buying stuff from them. On a national level, that means dealing with the unfair business rate system, insane rents, higher utility costs (always higher than residential!), ever increasing employment costs (NIC!), etc.

I think there are plenty of people who try to find things in their own high street first but when they can't then of course they're going to order it online.

So by this logic we should just settle for stuff we dont like, is overpriced and only pick from 1 or 2 variations cos 'local is better'

if these small local sellers read the room, they would stock what sells and what people can afford

You certainly would have trouble living here (NZ) and not buying things made in China as almost everything is. Makes sense I guess as they are our largest trading partner. I agree with you about Trump.

Googled it, I couldn't remember where it came from, it was popularized by the great Terry Pratchett!

This statement refers to the "Boots Theory" popularized by Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, where the character Sam Vimes explains that a poor person buying cheap boots that quickly wear out will end up spending more money on footwear over time compared to a wealthy person who invests in a high-quality pair that lasts for years, illustrating how poverty can be expensive in the long run due to the need for constant replacements of inferior products.

There's the 'buy cheap buy twice' thing, then there's throwaway fashion.
I don't think the people buying from Temu & Shein can't necessarily afford something closer to home or better quality.

They must wear the cheapy stuff very little, then replace it very quickly, and if they aren't just building a stash of cheap clothing on their bedroom floors, then they're chucking it out, or into a charity shop. I doubt it would resell online.

I don't imagine the people who can't afford to buy new clothes are constantly buying from these places either, so the anecdote about a poor man buying cheap boots ultimately spends more on boots in a lifetime, than the rich man who buys a quality pair that last for years, wouldn't apply here.

It just seems people like to buy new, even if it is rubbish that's going to end up in landfill.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.
It's in that order for good reason.

There was also a brilliant programme about built in obsolescence on BBC years ago. Very interesting. Also about how paying by card or one tap, doesn’t feel like spending cash. I don’t think I would ever buy a new iPhone etc if I had to count out £1000 in cash. I would feel slightly sick. Not so paying by card!
Our tv doesn’t support Netflix or iplayer etc. so I have a chrome cast dongle. Because I refuse to buy a new tv because of software updates.

My DP’s have a gorgeous pine kitchen, handmade cabinets made by a carpenter in the 80’s. Shaker doors. You could refresh by painting.
I would love to find a make do and mend cafe. Would love to learn how to darn socks etc. My DM use to make her clothes fit better when I was a child. The waistband was always too big. A couple of darts or something and fitted it was like magic .Jar of buttons, nothing wasted.

Just ordered Less from the library. There's a waiting list but worth waiting.

I've not read the full thread yet, but came along to say exactly this.

The problem is that it is broke - or will be soon, @Lovebirdslovetea. The carcasses were clearly not particularly good quality (NotMeNoNo is right about differing quality chipboard carcasses), so we have sagging shelves, drawers starting to come apart, doors starting to sag.

Unfortunately these issues are not going to get any better, and painting the doors/replacing the worktop would not mend the issues - it would just be putting lipstick on a pig.

My point was that, if the kitchen’s carcass had been good quality, we could have revamped it, but a poor quality carcass has pushed us into needing to replace the whole thing.

You're free to do that, but you lose the right to complain about the demise of the High Street and closure of local shops.

You can do what you like. So can they.

I know what you're saying but I cannot justify paying about £18 more for something when I have an option not to. I compared prices of stuff I needed on Amazon, and found the whole lot about £60 cheaper. I won't pay that.

Has anyone seen the documentary on this where they shpwed that the poor countires getting our donated clothes can cope so it's creating landfil?
That was bit of a wow moment (fist was whne I worked in sorting centre and found out two thins. 1-the good clothes don't make it there, 2-people donate shit stained undies)