To be so angry with the British high street?

[peoniesarejustperfect]

Went sales shopping yesterday with my elderly Mother yesterday. We went to an 'affluent' city in the south east. We always go shopping after Christmas and it's a bit of a tradition and we normally really enjoy it. Yesterday was just so depressing - it made me fizz with anger. I hardly know where to start!!

The shops were just horrible - full of badly merchandised sales stuff which looked totally uninviting.

In several of the shops we went into there were no staff on the shop floor - we wanted to ask where different departments were (to save Mum walking too much), but no one to ask and poor signage.

In House of Fraser (one of the stores which is remaining open) we waited for 25 mins in the luggage department for a member of staff - there was no one there to help - no tape measure, no useful signs about cabin luggage allowances and no one to take any cash. We hung around for ages with two other families - no chairs to sit on, we just stood around. After a while we all gave up. The same in lingerie - no staff on duty. We had lunch there, which was really nice, but the restaurant loos were closed for cleaning when we went in at 12:15. What restaurant shuts its loos at lunchtime??? They suggested we left the restaurant and 'popped down' two floors to use another loo.

The British high street keep moaning but really, why on earth would anyone want to shop there? Why do they deserve our hard earned cash? It's incredibly expensive to park and the retailers don't seem very keen on keeping customers happy - let alone delighting them! There's not enough staff and with some notable exceptions, many of them are poorly trained - it all seems a bit of an effort for them.

Last Christmas we went to the US. I know it's different in America, but every morning in Macy's, when the doors open, a group of staff clap the shoppers in. We couldn't get over this and asked a sales assistant about it - she told us it's an honour to be picked - to welcome customers, look them in the eye and say thanks for coming. US retail is facing similar challenges, but what a different response. Helpful staff directing you to places, gorgeous merchandising, seats everywhere and staff trained to sell.

Anyone else fed up with the high street?

Our local town has nothing left going for it in terms of big shops - Marks and Spencer, BHS and House of Fraser have all gone in the last few years which has left gaping holes in the shopping centre. The remaining department store hasn't been updated in at least 30 years. There are a few lovely independent shops which are worth visiting and I'm keen to support them. Unfortunately the council has scrapped the free parking at weekends and put a flat £2 charge in place.

A large retail park has opened down the road, free parking, an abundance of open space and lots of shops....

You can guess which one is busier. The public aren't obligated to support their high street. Disposable income has dropped over the years, as well as the amount of free time available. I'm as guilty as the next man of liking the idea of a high street but actually ordering the majority of my shopping on line. I need to make sure I'm paying the right price and since I work 5 days a week, I'd rather spend my time elsewhere.

There will be more closures as the uk has too many shops and with low wages people have less disposable income.

The lack of workers rights and people on crap contracts means we have less time too.

Even with all this, we are still a nation of consumers. But many people are turning their backs on buying more shiny and more new things. Lots are making the move to a simpler way of life, for both monetary and ecological reasons.

I hate my local town centre and probably won't bother with the one in my new area. I refuse to pay for parking unless an emergency. The only shops I have missed are c and a and woolworths. Shops like maplins, toys r us and bhs deserved to go under as they were no longer relevant.

To stay in business you need to stay relevant and desirable.

I just wish sports direct and shops that have practices like that go under. We all need to vote with our feet.

The High st also shot itself in the foot when it didn't respond to lunchtime customers who are in a hurry and didn't put on extra staff to cope with the peak, in fact, they scheduled staff breaks at peak time, so even fewer staff to serve the peak customers.

When you've only an hour, and that includes your travel time to the shops and back, you're not going to hand around in long queues, so will just go home and order online instead - or drive to the nearby out of town supermarket or retail park instead.

High streets have become a magnet for every junkie and pickpocket in the area. Not to mention the fake homeless and the perverts. The police and councils do 0.

When both me and my next door neighbour were robbed on the same street within half an hour, the police auto-emailed with a 'we're not investigating' rubric. Easy pickings - the reality of 2018 is that criminal gangs rob local shoppers unchallenged.

Online shopping is safer than local shopping in terms of being stolen from or robbed, which given the web security problems that still dog us all, is a bit of a shocker.

Incidentally, TK Maxx is always a hotspot for pickpockets.

Welcome to the New Age. 21st Century.

Things change.

High streets have become a magnet for every junkie and pickpocket in the area. Not to mention the fake homeless and the perverts. The police and councils do 0.

Wow. I live in Europe. None of this happens here...

We have homeless of course.

Wow. I live in Europe. None of this happens here...

So do most of us on the thread

I tried to support the high street by shopping there before Xmas. Never again. No staff on the floor to help locate items. What’s the point. Left several shops having bought a lot less than I wanted.

Europe isn't a country. It may not happen in your country but it could happen in the one right across the border!

Fake homelessness isn't really a thing. It's just a way to excuse yourself not caring about homelessness.

@KirstyAllsoppsFatterTwin I was sent over to cover an afternoon in the Longfield branch of Nationwide. (I wonder if it is still open now?) The staff members knew everyone there and I’m sure those changes have really affected a lot of people.

Fake homelessness isn't really a thing.

Eh? I'm afraid it is very much a thing, speaking as someone who works with the homeless. Which I expect you do too, unpaid, like me.

Organised gangs of beggars pretending to be homeless are sent round rich bits of London daily, dropped and collected by BMWs. They have begging targets. And well heated, comfortable homes.

And as for the Big Issue sellers, crime gangs wait to collect the magazine before the homeless can and send out women to beg with them.

The Big Issue is at its wit's end about how to deal with the fake beggars.

Don't forget, too, counting the freelancers and others who are very well housed but who like begging. It's a free country after all. Not so many of these around as there used to be, though, they're more or less losing their patch to addicts.

There's just too many negative factors against high street shopping now. The councils really shot themselves in the foot with car parking charges.

I completely agree on the parking charges. Councils seem bizarrely unable to understand that, if they didn't charge for parking (and ideally kept the public toilets open and banned the chuggers), more people would use the High Street, there would be far fewer empty premises, takings would go up across the board and they could then charge significantly higher business rates.

I live in the Midlands, not all that far from the enormous Merry Hill shopping complex. They have a huge amount of parking spaces there, all completely free and unrestricted. Even if they charged just a flat £1 fee for as long as you want to stay, they'd take tens of thousands each week, so why do they 'turn away' all of that money? Maybe, just maybe, they understand how business works better than a lot of local council-run high streets....

Fake homelessness isn't really a thing. It's just a way to excuse yourself not caring about homelessness.

Surely it's precisely because you care about genuinely homeless people that you'd be angry with professional beggars who are driven in each morning and thoroughly poison the well by taking away donations, support and/or goodwill that people might otherwise offer to the genuinely vulnerable.

I totally agree re the parking WeBuilt. We have the same situation in Sheffield with Meadowhall. The weekly train strikes aren't helping either. I can drive to Meadowhall and park for free, but can't get a train into Sheffield on Saturday. It doesn't take long to rack up parking fees into double figures in town.

It's no surprise that the turnover of Meadowhall M and S is eight times that if the one in the middle of Sheffield.

That said the council have been addressing these issues and are gentrifying the town centre. The Peace Gardens, Winter Gardens, Leopold Square and surrounding area are really nice with surrounding old buildings so it isn't a soulless place. It also has a positive vibe.

We have free parking, low rents but the high street is still dead on its feet. The town is low income. Anyone coming in has to compete with Lidl at one end of the high street and Asda at the other. The only businesses which survive are the ones where you get a service rather than a product so we have a couple of hair salons and nail bars. Other than that, very little. A couple of charity shops is about it.

Fake homelessness isn't really a thing. It's just a way to excuse yourself not caring about homelessness.

I see groups of Roma women begging with children all the time - they aren't homeless, but I think naive people assume they must be.

I’m not sure why the minimum wage is being mentioned all the time. Many of you leave your babies with busy min wage staff every day but wouldn’t expect the staff to cut corners or ignore the children or not clean up. Shop staff are there to do a job and should do it properly, just like all other min wage staff in other jobs have to.

However, talking about working conditions is fair enough and anywhere with poor management is not going to do well. I’ve noticed a decline over the last few years in numbers of staff on the floor and on the tills.

The council derives significant income from parking charges (and fines). As well as income from high rates on town centre premises.
Councils are cash strapped as well so taking any of that away wouldn't be easy.

But the shop manager wouldn't speak to me, and the shop wouldn't answer the phone when I rang.

Forget the phone or face to face conversations. TWITTER seems the only way to get any kind of response from the big boys. Complaints/ criticisms seem to be picked up quickly. They hate the world knowing what they're up to.

The High street is dying because attitudes/habits change and businesses don't keep up.

A lot of been essentially zombie businesses since the financial crash of 2008, during the boom everyone was spending happy and the crash didn't flush out all the deadwood as measuers were put in place to prop things up like the housing market.

Also a lot of shops refused to get with the times, its like Kodac with the digital camera and Blockbuster with streaming, they decided to ignore the trend and not cannibalise their core business model (short term profits). HMV for example was perfectly positioned to offer a streaming service a la spotify but ignored it, refused to even offer a destination/experience the last time they went into administration.

All the hand wringing about the death of the high street forget that department stores killed off all the little independents, and that we no longer have blacksmiths on the high street, things evolve. Minimum wage is an irrelevant talking point as that's an economic one.

The death of the high street is something that always happens, its been left to rot for a couple of decades as they thought they had a captive market and got lazy.

I think another poster summed up where shops are going wrong.

When I shop I want to be able to go to a clean, logically stocked store with polite staff.

I don't want to have to go through a maze of random trollies or baskets. If I'm looking for accessories then I want to have a section on accessories, not have to wander around the whole store for odd little mini racks of accessories scattered around the store in each 'capsule' section. I know how to dress myself so don't need to walk to the red and black party section to find a necklace.
I don't want people trying to upsell me random chocolates, perfume etc at the till. I dont want to be asked every 5 seconds if I have a loyalty card. I dont want to be asked if I have a store card or have someone try to sell me a store card.

I hate going into shops where there's a push on sales bonuses because the services is fake and pushy. I dont want people to pretend to be my friend or clap me in.

As long as some shops have poor service (through rudeness or fake pushy hard sell) and stores that are a bloody obstacle course to get around then I don't want to shop there.

I agree WhiteDust Twitter is invaluable for customer complaints that might otherwise get covered up because unlike a corporate facebook page they cannot delete comments or manipulate content.

This is an important marketing tool though. They don't always want to make it easy for you to walk in, buy the one item you went for, then walk out again. Why would they? They want to put items in your eyeline that you might not have had any intention of buying when you entered, but look! It goes brilliantly with that dress you want.

I hate it when supermarkets I know well constantly move their stock around the isles so I have to learn from scratch where everything is. But they do it for the same reasons.

It's annoying but they won't change because we don't like it - it makes them more money!

and of course that's the downside (for them) of shopping from their website. You are less tempted to browse or be distracted when you can zone in on the one or two items you need and filter out everything.