AIBU to think that high streets and small towns will be thing of the past?

[Lonelybunny]

Well now due to Jessops going broke and clintons and woolworths our town has hardly any shops left. It's so depressing down there, do you think the only shops left will be super stores, like asda and tesco? Maybe due to them selling everything and of course online shopping. I feel so bad for all the retail staff loosing jobs yet again.

My gut feeling, I have been saying it for a while: WH Smiths and Argos (although I do think people who follow the herd STILL think Argos is a cheap store)

I was right about Comet - I went in looking for an HDMI lead a couple of weeks before they closed and said to my son "this feels like a store thats going out of business" the only hdmi they had was a £50 monster one and they had no xboxes/playstations as I am guessing those companies would no longer supply them.

Argos were also running out of stock before Christmas - and shares are being sold off cheaper than last year's advent calendars. Argos has the worst of both worlds, really - you cannot see the goods til you buy and you have to park to go there. Morrisons won't fold yet but are struggling, with no "local" stores, no non-food, and no online stuff.

Edinburgh's Princes Street has to be one of the worst examples of stores replacing beautiful, historic facades with bland steel and glass frontages.

It was built as a private, rather grand, Georgian residences but the shops took over the area. Then, in the 1950s the town planners decided that no shop would be given planning permission to change the facade unless they built a first floor walkway across the front of the building. What a way to uglify a beautiful street!

I would be surprised to see WH Smith go, although I dislike shopping there because their staff aren't very knowledgable and their shops are disorganised.

Their business was turned around by their CEO, Kate Swann, in 2011, although she is due to leave the company in the summer this year, so who knows what might happen.

I always feel stressed and suffocated in WH Smith, hate it and having to wade through loads of men reading magazines when I want to BUY one is frustrating in the extreme.

On an amusing note I saw a lady huff out of Budgen a couple of weeks ago when she was told if she wanted to read the newspaper they they would prefer her to buy it LOL.

I live between two local high streets here in London - both are thriving because they are directly catering to specialised groups: one is a very ethnic high street with specialised independent shops (grocery stores, delis, cafes, restaurants, clothing, music/DVDs) for a couple of particular communities so, even though parking is difficult, it is thriving because it's catering to a specific demand; the other thriving high street near me is packed with small independent stores catering to a specific well-off community (young or retired professionals with money to spare) eg boutique clothing, delis, organic bakers, organic grocers, health foods, Aveda hair salon, Virgin Active gym, wooden toys etc. There are few chains on either high street - in the latter there is a Starbucks and Tesco Metro - but their independent equivalents seem to be just as busy/popular.

Shops that stock niche products and cater to a well off market have a chance of surviving in an affluent town but they need to really, really cater for their customers.
Fruit and Veg shops that deliver and butchers that stock and deliver traceable meats all have a future but they need to cater for the sort of customer that is willing to put in the effort to buy better goods.

Sadly the future for bog standard high st shops is pretty bleak and books, music, electronic suppliers are all under pressure

I am assuming that all of the people sorrowfully lamenting the end of the high street still always shop there, and never take advantage of the vastly more convenient large supermarkets, retail parks and online shopping?

People vote with their feet and this is the choice that the public have made. Shops cannot stay open if people are choosing to go elsewwhere.

The WHSmiths and Argos near me are both well-stocked (I particularly love Smith's wide variety of magazines) but have hardly any customers whenever I pop in. On this teeny sample basis I wouldn't be surprised if both close, despite haing been here locally for decades...

mindosa, agree entirely.

stubbornstains, many of the most recent items I've bought on Amazon have been fulfilled by small sellers, including toys and electrical wares. They were able to offer a competitive price and suitable delivery.

[WHS] was turned around by their CEO, Kate Swann, in 2011

well when I went into WHS (sounds like a line from a poem!) the other day, all that had changed was that they had crazy self service tills that made Tesco look efficient, charged for carrier bags, and had hidden what I wanted (refill pads of lined A4 paper and some pens) behind fifteen feet of half price chocolate and some soon-to-be-remaindered books by former BigBrother inmates. I couldn't find the paper, couldn't find an assistant, and went to Sainsbury's instead. Where I probably paid less for it all anyway. You can't made a silk purse out of a sow's ear - the high street market is smaller and depends on non-self service items that people will pay a premium for. If I want to rummage on the shelves and be told "unexpected item in the bagging area" I can go to Sainsbury's and do it way cheaper.

What about Boots? It was always packed in the 1980s and it sold records, electrical goods, household goods as well as the usual toiletries and make up. Nowadays, it is always empty and I, personally, always feel like I have overpaid whatever I buy there.

Surely Boots must be feeling the pinch too?

DS1 had a Saturday job at Boots, initially in a small store where some Saturdays they barely took enough to pay the wages. But in the large local town, they did really well. Boots has a good name for offering advice in its pharmacies, and a good online business too - and a loyalty scheme that keeps people coming back. I think they will reconfigure but remain - possibly not in small towns where the supermarket has a pharmacy though.

Argos sound like they're in trouble. Reserved something online and had three wasted trips to collect following three pointless 'your item is ready to be collected' texts. Still no product as every time I went they said there was no stock and the texts came from another department. Pffffttt.

Our high street is full of pound shops, cheap takeaways with £1 meal deals (of horse meat burgers probably), cash for gold shops. It's depressing. Oh and you get to pay £1.80 per hour to park there.

Looks like Blockbuster is the next to go, administrators called in. news.sky.com/story/1038898/retail-crisis-blockbuster-uk-collapses

I thought Blockbusters had already gone to be honest. Both branches here shut October time

freddie They shut a load to avoid administration. Seems it didn't work :(

Oh come on guys, are you really surprised that Blockbuster Video has gone bust? When did you last go into one?

1989... but they didn't have anything I wanted to watch!

blockbusters should have gone the Netflix/LoveFilm way - the management clearly didn't look ahead. Another load of redundancies. Quite a rollercoaster, these triple dips. Oddly I never seem to notice the up bits: just seems to have gone down three times and also as I re-read that bit with a dirty mind.

We used to go fairly regularly. We used to take the kids to choose a DVD for movie night a couple of times a month.

Our local blockbuster was in a little parade of shops which had lots of free parking. Then the council started charging £1.10 to park there for half an hour, installed an over zealous traffic warden so in the end It wasn't worh the bother still smarting at the £25 fine for over staying by 2 minutes

Then we got Netflix

I guess Clarks is safe, even though our local one offers non-existent customer service and only ever has one pair of shoes in DS's size, no matter what size he is at the time??

"blockbusters should have gone the Netflix/LoveFilm way"

Quite, especially as it took ages for LoveFilm and Netflix to make it over here. Blockbusters had a huge opportunity to jump in before them, it was a household name when they weren't. It could have totally flattened the competition.

And I bet the MD and Co-directors have still made a fortune, Murder, and the workforce will get Stat redundancy subsidised by the taxpayer. We're all rolling in it together!

Catriona, count yourself lucky - my DS's are all blessed with HUGE feet (14 yo has size 13 feet now) and we can only buy shoes online. The lack of anywhere to buy boys' shoes between sizes 6 and 8, except school shoes, is one niche, as is the provision of boys' clothes to fill the gap between age 14 M&S (age 10 for my boys) and small men's clothes.