AIBU to ask why French high streets seem to thrive?

There is Amazon in France, but there are lots of regulations for online retail. Not allowed to sell a book online for less than retail price. Not allowed to offer free shipping. There is a compulsory registration scheme and tax for packaging even if sent into France from overseas. In addition to import duty/VAT etc. This all makes online shopping slightly more clunky and expensive. Then the cultural habit of shopping in person is easier to maintain.

Protected lunchtimes might be inconvenient if you are not used to it, but it is better for shop workers and enables shops to stay open later which is useful for customers who work during the day. The UK high street is set up for households with a housewife who can do the shopping during the working day. That’s a vanishing situation. At the moment we have a very large number of retired people - when this generation dies off, who will be around during the working day to go to the shops? A few shift workers and the unemployed? If the high street wants to survive, it needs to adapt.

Lower land prices and business rents. In Britain the only value is exploitative profit for the few. Europe has not entirely given up on other things.

What I’ve noticed in France is that self-service checkouts haven’t taken off. Good on ‘em, they’re choosing not to be totally ruled by computers in the way the U.K. is.

In a little village in France that we visit a lot, we've lost 75% of the local village shops - we used to have 2 pharmacies (now 1), 2 bakers (now 1), a bar tabac (now only the posh hotel bar), and there's a butcher and a co-op (used to be 2 small shops). There are still 2 hairdressers though!!!

It's because you're not allowed to sell even basic medicines like paracetamol or ibuprofen in supermarkets but have to get them from a pharmacy 🤷🏻‍♀️

Years ago when diesel was so cheap in France, we had holidayed in the Loire and driven to calais, planning to buy diesel at Calais then board ferry home. Was a Sunday. Could we find anywhere that sold fuel on a Sunday? Nada. They had pay at the pump options (this was years before us in the UK) but UK cards would not yet work. Like you we said never arrive.or depart on a Sunday!

Also what kills many UK high streets is the lack of parking.

It could simply be weather, its walmer people will be out longer.
When ive been to spsin its the same more people out in th evenings visiting bars and cafes boosting the economy.
Here in uk we dont have that so we are not brought up in s society where we have learnt to spend time out of our homes

You can't take any experience that you may have had in August and extrapolate it to being true all year round.

Yes, in August (and late July) you can drive through French towns where "nothing" is open. But that's because it's the summer and the French are big on proper summer holidays (3 weeks off work is normal/sometimes obligatory, 4 weeks is not shocking).

I live in a large city in SE France. Loads of high street shops and an absolutely enormous out of centre shopping complex. There is amazon as PPs have said, but deliveries take at least a week and I personally try to avoid it.

If you want to see busy shops in France, try the end of August when everyone is buying for going back to school/work!

High business rates and high rents, greedy landlords, in the UK, has killed the high st.

You are so spoiled here in the UK!

Indeed. When I was a child in the 60s before the advent of the supermarket, we'd have to queue at the butchers, queue at the green grocers, queue at the fishmongers, queue at the bakery, queue at the corner shop for tinned & packet goods and eggs. It was incredibly time-consuming . Now we've got all that under one roof from morning til midnight and behind- fabulous! And our supermarkets sell over the counter medication - I don't think they do that in Spain - hence all the pharmacies!

In my part of the East Midlands there are several thriving high streets - Bingham, West Bridgford, Radcliffe for examples. Coffee shops - chains and independents - bring a lot of people to the high street which I think is rather lovely. People socialising or having a coffee alone with the buzz of other people.

I bloody love the UK.

True about lower housing costs as well. Things have changed though, I’ve been visiting family there for nearly 40 years (in the south). Supermarkets have become more common particularly big ones, more UPFs, convenience foods. Big supermarket do open on Sunday & some no longer close for lunch.

That's interesting about ready meals. Our local French supermarkets sell hardly any ready meals, far fewer than in the UK.

Most people here buy fruit, veg, meat and cheese from the market and just top those up at the supermarket. Bread is bought each morning from one of the bakeries and, despite a falling population (as is the case across much of rural France), the coffee shops in are thriving. Restaurants aren't though. The small rural population, distances between towns and lack of visitors in winter means many empty restaurant buildings.

Shorter working week, more time to shop ad hoc

We were on holiday in France this year and were due to travel back to the UK by ferry on a Sunday. Our car broke down. OMG, the additional difficulties that were posed by it being a Sunday.

It did make us appreciate the UK in that way.

We will not book any further travel to France arriving or leaving on a Sunday.

You need to think of it the other way round. Most countries have thriving high streets. I used to live in australia and now live in a northern european country. Both with good shopping in centres.

It's the uk that is the anomaly.

French supermarkets are much more heavily regulated than English ones. Opening hours are shorter, and they’re not allowed to sell regulated products like tobacco or medicine.

That means that if you want cigarettes or paracetamol then you have to go into the pharmacy or tabac, protecting at least two high-street shops.

French culture around food and wine is very different from English culture. In the uk there is an underlying assumption that buying good food (bakery bread, farmers market veg, butchers meat, wine from a wine shop, cooking from scratch) is older people or middle class or aspirational. In France it is just the norm, and people spend a significantly higher percentage of income on food.

This means that there is a much larger segment of the population who use independent food shops.

Agree.

Small villages around us lost their little shops and bars years ago. In our own village every two-three years someone tries to get a cafe going (subsidised from village funds), usually lasts a year or so then folds due lack of business - we're somewhere not that touristy or on a main road.

The high street in our local small industrial town has definitely seen a decline over the last 20 years but it's still sort of OK. What does appear to happen is if a store goes out of business new owners move in, do it up, grand opening...then six months/year later store closes and it's rinse and repeat- might be down to subsidies for start ups,don't know.

Big city up the road has several massive out of town shopping centres.

Supermarkets definitely do exist.

Amazon works here.

Sunday opening depends on Departmental rules (or used to) and is usually AM only.

France has a High Street problem just like the UK. They have about the same percentage of empty stores and many villages have lost their local shops and services. Also hypermarkets on the outskirts of towns have had a negative impact on local high streets. But the French only do about half as much shopping online, they have a much higher preference for in person shopping and it is common to buy some foods (as PPs have mentioned) fresh a few times a week.

More importantly, they have managed to protect independent stores in a way the UK hasn't. In particular, they haven't been taken over by chains because labour laws really favour owner operators and towns can have a right of first refusal on retail locations for sale and buy them up in order to lease at affordable rates to owner operators and to control the mix of retail on the high street.

About 20 years ago I was about 21 years old. I went to visit my dad who lived on the Gambetta in Nice. We went for a drink one evening to a, what looked like an African bar. The men stopped me on the way in because I had a decorative cross around my neck.

And that's one of the best things about living in France!

Also, we do have Amazon 😂

Are you serious? Have been to France 20+ times and have yet to need a pharmacist.

My dad lives in France, he had a stroke. So he is a hypochondriac?

Netto used to be in the UK too.

Asking for the nearest supermarket in Leeds once, I was directed to Netto. I’d never heard of it before.

It was horrible inside.

Similar problems in France. We just got back from two weeks there and saw multiple small towns where the pharmacy and boulingerie (spelling!) were the only things open. There’s an intermache on the outskirts of most towns and villages. The more well known towns annd villages are thriving but it’s mainly cafes and restaurants not butchers etc.

Ha, have you ever been to a French supermarket? More ready meals than you can shake a stick at.

What I noticed was that French food shops (not supermarkets) are actually open later in the evening but shut for a period in the daytime.

Whereas in the UK when individual butchers and greengrocers existed they were only open during the time most of their potential customers were at work. Duh!

I used to live in a prime commuter belt area, 15 minutes walk from the station and the dry cleaners only opened during my office hours so I couldn't use them for my suits.