Went to purchase phone instore how ridiculous and confusing is this?

They’ll exist for as long as they are needed and used but you pay for their service. A LOT. My parents refuse to book flights online and insist on using ‘lovely Gill in Lunn Polys down the high street’. They pay nearly 20% more for the exact same flights I can buy online because of Gill (and it hasn’t been Lunn Poly for at least 20 years!)
Same concept with your mobile phone shop.

But nearly everyone wants/needs a mobile phone nowadays so even if you like going into a shop if that wasn't an option you would still buy a mobile. And its easier and most people stick with the same provider so tgey aren't going to lose sales.

Sympathies..why is life so bloody complicated for the most standard of transactions🤯

Yeah that's crap. I think it's almost like banks.

They don't want you to use the shops so they can justify reducing bricks and mortar stores. So make the experience as painful and long and expensive as possible.

Then they can save more money by saying that shop performed poorly and nobody uses it anymore. So they close it down.

I had this recently with EE and just ordered it via their app in the end. They were useless in store!

New phone came within 48 hours and these days you just put the two phones next to each other and it transfers everything over within 10-15 minutes. You don’t even need to faff about with SIMs these days, it’s all digital at least with iPhones. So easy (and I’m a complete tech dunce).

But if you work in a bricks and mortar phone shop, it isn't your job to know about or deal with online phone orders - even from the same branded company.

Try going into Tesco and asking the person who works in the in-store bakery about online shopping slots from the same supermarket - even if you only want to order bread to be delivered and nothing else... they won't know either; they might have a bit of a 'best guess', but they will assume you would just look online if you wanted accurate info.

Yes, most high streets are full of empty shops now - and those that are taken up anew are service-based/leisure business rather than pure retail. It seems bizarre to think that the internet would have come along and just waited quietly unobtrusively in the corner, rather than transforming all areas of life.

Just as one example of many, a lot of us of a certain age will recall the ubiquitous adverts for 118 118 a couple of decades ago, along with the scramble for loads of companies wanting to cash in big-time by offering their own directory enquiries services to everybody who regularly used them, once the market was opened up to competition. How profitable do you think they are now? How many people under 40 now have ever, or will ever, use them?

The same with ringtones: there was a time when a tinny version of the then-current top 20 songs was available to buy for a few pounds, as advertised widely in all kinds of magazines. Nowadays, when you can record/download any track that's ever been released for free; or indeed any sound at all and add it to your phone yourself...?

I think you need some fresh air.

Indeed. Many people are happy to have the entire market at their fingertips - and also the ability to find the very cheapest prices for themselves. They wouldn't actually want to go to a high street to pay a much higher price for a much more limited choice.

Even if travel agents freely searched for and offered every single holiday that somebody could find online themselves - commission free - they would still need to charge considerably more, as you're paying for a person's time. Just like if you called in an electrician for simple jobs such as changing light bulbs or wiring plugs, you would still pay the going rate based on their time and livelihood, even though they're extremely basic tasks that most people do for themselves (or may ask somebody to help with if they're elderly, frail and/or disabled) without thinking for a moment that it would require a professional.

They'll exist for as long as the business is there to make them viable. Once it reaches a tipping point where very few people want to pay standard in-person retail prices when you can routinely pay far less online, or indeed very few people want to buy them at all, they will go.

Whether it's something still very in demand (such as books or holidays), something that has become obsolete in the past decade or two (such as VHS tapes or film cameras), or something that routinely disappeared from society long before anybody alive now was born (such as powdered periwigs or bottles made from animal skins) - if selling them on the high street stops being viable, they will disappear from the high street. People run businesses in order to make money; not primarily to keep things available for a tiny minority of people who will give them custom.

We're with Tesco. I went too see about changing phones, again we buy outright. They said they'd do all the swapping for me and then added that I could buy the phone cheaper elsewhere and if I brought it in they'd still swap everything over for me no charge.

I dont think the shops are going anywhere soon.

Oh, I think that's almost certainly going to happen.

People liked going into banks and speaking to real people for advice, but many of them have now closed!

Travel agents charge extra for that service though, so if you book through a travel agent you'll pay an increased price. The same as your situation.

Yes, I buy direct from Apple which is not cheap but I get a small discount for being a student. Apple products are never discounted.

Of course you can, I have done this for years! Buy new phone online, insert SIM, contract continues as normal.

Do not see what is confusing here at all. Web store prices have been a thing for years and obviously you can’t get things at that price in the store, what would be the point?

You’re paying £150 more in store because people can’t be bothered learning the simple process of setting up a phone so they have to pay staff/overheads.

Modern phones have eSIMs so you don’t have to change the sim anymore, not that it was that difficult before, was it?

I am tech support for family/friends but push people to do as much for themselves. I don’t mind helping but some people don’t even bloody try. Everyone can google and make an effort to sort their own stuff out.

I'm probably more naive than OP, I thought I had to go to one of the shops operated by my phone provider to change my phone - but it looks as if I'm wrong. Can I just get a new handset, transfer everything across and continue on my current contract? Any recommendations for the cheapest way to get Apple phones?

Yeah, they’re always so lovely.

We had a house fire once. I took the only iPad l’d rescued which had a crack in it ( insurance takes months) and they just gave me another one💕

If you want to feel loved, cherished, listened to, taken care of - go to my local Apple Store. 😊

Op have you actually tried setting one up yourself. It really is easy as long as you have all your passwords. Don’t make things a bigger problem in your head than they are. Try yourself and I bet you will be delighted

That makes sense then to keep the phone for upgrades

Most of what you describe is anti fraud measures. Delivery to home address is more secure for the company

How naive doesn’t matter how busy they are if there not making a profit then they shut

online will always had lower operating cost than the high st