To ask where all those who said that WFH would be good for business are now?

[ChampagnePuppy]

Sorry, sort of a rant.
I work in a small local foodie business in the South West. I know there is a cost of living crisis, but I also feel that WFH culture is killing us.
So many said that they would spend more in their local high streets now they were WFH but that seems to have stopped.
People are online food shopping and then not leaving their houses. Three local businesses announced they were closing this week, two bakeries and one restaurant. I can count five since Christmas which have folded.
I know a lot are feeling the pinch from gas and electric but a lot of people are just WFH, squirrelling their money away, saving and then saying 'oh that's a shame' on the Facebook posts when a business announces they're folding. Why not support them? I'm not talking about those on the breadline but those who are financially comfortable.
If you want a diverse high street, you have to support local businesses or we won't be here in a years time.

I'll also add, DH and I have shifted to spending money on our home and garden, rather than on food and drink.
We no longer support the pubs and cafes like we used to. But we are supporting the local independent garden centre, double glazing company and timber yard!
We went for a basic Chinese meal out the other week and it was £75! The experience was a bit crap and over in 90 mins. For just 12 times that cost, I'm just about to buy a solid oak, double door larder cupboard for our kitchen, which we'll own for the rest of our lives.
We've also just bought a coffee machine for £400. It arrives today. I had a coffee at Costa this morning - the place was filthy (at opening time!) and the lady serving was so stretched, she practically threw my coffee into the cup and spilt it all over the handle. So with our new machine, I won't bother going again.
We're becoming more and more self sufficient and I'm afraid I won't compromise that to keep someone in a job.
I work for a corporate law firm and revenues are down 30% compared to last year. I don't see anyone worried about my job!

OP won't come back because this thread has been discussed in our local City FB group. And everyone says the same. That's she's a bit deluded and probably scared off her customers 😂

@ChampagnePuppy - do you think perhaps you are guilty of assuming the immediate changes while covid restrictions were still in place, would be permanent?

you are in an area that benefitted for a temporary period from ex commuters moving to the area, having low living costs (so more disposable income), and at the same time, limits on what they could spend their disposable income on- they couldn’t go on far flung holidays, it was hard to get building materials so house renovations had to wait, nights out were limited to meals or drinks in local restaurants with only small groups of people. Theatre, gigs, not an option. So why not spend your money in that nice local cafe for lunch? Not like you could do a big night out instead. feel nervous about going into the big shopping mall fearing you’ll catch covid? Go to the relatively overpriced local boutique instead.

these were temporary changes and it’s not surprising when there is more to do than walk to the local high street and buy an overpriced cake, people do different things with their now limited money.

Yeah, I'm sure it was lack of parking and not... the giant boom in online shopping.

Interesting thread.

I do think the OP has a bit of a point about choices - everyone is happy with cheap and cheerful until it means building
A massive Amazon warehouse in their locality or a broiler unit pops up. I also think there are implications for us as a society. I genuinely don't think Ubering yourself a pastry and a coffee is great for anyone's mental health let along the environment.

However, I'm on my holidays in a Scottish border town. Went for a mooch about after breakfast looking at the shops thinking about this thread. They were all open from 10.30 - it's half term and the local big hotel is heaving so why not work an extra hour and catch some trade. At 9.58 I saw the jewellers open their door to a lady waiting and barking "we open at 10 don't you know". It really wasn't the lovely local experience you'd imagine it to be.

There was an independent clothes shop where they opened at 9 and had a friendly lady. £100 and a 2 dresses later that shopkeeper has had a good morning.

Wow wish we knew the name of this foodie place so we could boycott. It’s absolutely none of your business where people spend there money! Why would someone pay £4.50 for a coffee when it’s £2.50 in a supermarket cafe in the middle of a cost of living crisis it’s not doable! Other than convenience I didn’t save a penny working from home, if anything it’s more costly because your using more gas and electric which in case your not aware costs an absolute fortune at the moment! Food shops increased dramatically in price! Whereas an an example we may have had £500 disposable income this time 12 months ago we may only have £100 which results in people cutting down on luxuries and they have absolutely no obligation to spend it in your clearly overpriced trampy foodie place. You are living on another planet.

I live near Salzburg and I'm a musician.
Salzburg is a city of music with several professional orchestras and a world-renowned conservatoire. The place is heaving with musicians and students from all over the world.

Even here the only sheet-music shop in the city isn't viable. There was uproar about 3 years ago as it had to close with various petitions going on to keep it open. Basically it wasn't bringing enough money in to survive after paying the rent. It has now moved to a very small premises in the "Kunstquartier", has hardly any music in the shop to buy and is basically a place where people can go in, browse what little sheet music there is and then place an order with them for their online shop if they can't find the music they want.

When I first came here ca. 15 years ago I used to get the bus into the city, call in to the music shop and browse, maybe buy something (though the prices were extortionate even then), wander around for a bit, go to a nice cafe, attend to whatever business I had in the city and then get the bus home.

But it's all changed, and long before WFH and the pandemic and CoL. Why go into a music shop when you can sit at home and order any music online from the comfort of the sofa to have it delivered in a couple of days? I didn't have the time to go in to the shop to see if they had something (which they usually didn't) and then have to order it and then go back in again to pick it up 10 days later when it eventually arrived. The shop itself has expanded its online business too.

The online model has taken over and yes it's a shame but there's nothing you can do to stop it. I can send my students a link to a book to purchase and they can order it online easily (I do try to send them a couple of links to two different online shops, smaller retailers where possible). Similarly, my teacher just sends me links - just a couple of clicks from his WhatsApp message and the book is on the way, usually arriving in 2 or 3 days. I'm very busy too and I can order online at any time of the day or night, taking just a few minutes, instead of having to plan in a long trip into the city.

As a student I used to shop at Banks music in York - back in the 90s they had everything under the sun in stock, in cardboard boxes, and I ended up spending a fortune on stuff from there. But their selection gradually dwindled and they moved a lot online and are part of the musicroom. com family now.

Things have changed and businesses have to adapt to survive and if a sheet music shop can't survive in Salzburg that really shows how far things have progressed.

@Salzburggirl I don't think it's progression to be honest. I think it's a step towards automation, uniformity and ultimately government control. We will look back at the days of towns having different identities, small businesses where shop owners are able to make decisions rather than being ruled by visa or Uber, being able to look at physical items and feel the material quality etc and when 16 year olds could have flexibility during exam periods rather than having a zero hour contract with a minimum shift of 12 hours and think why did we let ourselves sleepwalk into this?

I don’t think it is anything at all to do with government control😂it’s to do with convenience.

As a secondary school teacher, no 16 year olds have ever had flexibility during exam period. That would defeat the object.

And ultimately with a different government l think zero hours contracts will go.

The thing is, we can hark back to the 'good old days' but for shopping, were they? I'll accept perhaps for some items they were, but for most things, if you worked M-F the ONLY option was to head to a high street on a Saturday, possibly pay over the odds for parking, muscle past everyone else also doing their shopping and then head home exhausted. Wouldn't be my choice of how to spend a weekend.

OR you were a housewife who didn't work because you could afford to raise a family on your husband's income alone, but that's a whole different thread

It's interesting about Salzburg because I thought the "death of the High St" was a UK (maybe even GB as Belfast seemed to have loads of shops and few empty units when I was there) thing. I went to Duesseldorf before Christmas and there are thousands of shops - it just seems to go on and on. And a friend lives in a town with around the same size population as mine in northern Germany and it has loads more shops as well.

Also interested in the experience in Scotland - I never quite understand the thing about independent shops as your experience is exactly the same as mine - they have capricious opening hours and often behave as if they are doing you a favour. Their returns policies are often not very customer friendly either. People say oh well you're keeping a local business alive, yes but if I shop in Sainsburys it's staffed by local people who spend locally too.

I also think it's odd how so many cafes and the like don't open on bank holiday Mondays or similar when you'd think there'd be loads of trade.

Honestly, you sounds a little disturbed.

I am 40. I didn’t get flexibility at 16 for exams in my job. Neither did your friends.

People don’t want to shop in your business for a reason. And it’s not government control or wfh. Especially, since you didn’t rely on commuters before the pandemic, it’s definitely not wfh.

A huge part, of why people aren’t shopping in your business, is down to the business itself. Small businesses are only ever success if they change with the times. A small business that remains stagnant. Even when it’s clear it’s not working, will go under.

Here’s an idea OP, run a business that actually offers your customers something.
You have to be good at something, either it’s excellent food, a great atmosphere or a great location. You can’t just sit back and demand that people spend money in shitty cafes because they don’t pay as much for their commute.
They have to earn their money so they can spend it how they choose.
You have to earn yours so make it work.
If your business plan isn’t good enough then ultimately tough luck. That’s no one else’s fault.
Seeing you bang on shot government control just makes me realise why people don’t want to support you.

It reminds me of my local area, it was pedestrianised and some businesses kicked up a massive fuss. Others pushed themselves to grow and change and they are not thriving. Those that arranged protests against the pollution measures brought in place showed people who they are and they aren’t thriving as much.

I'm confused, is it people working from home causing the problem or government control? 🤔

Ironically zero hours contracts are actually very flexible and quite well-suited to 16yr olds doing exams..

I live in a village and work in another village. Ever since I moved out of the town centre I stopped going there. Parking is expensive, the cost of a bus is similar but less convenient, there are people everywhere, they closed road lanes to encourage pedestrians but it's created traffic jams. It's just a chaotic, unpleasant place to go. Retail shops were closing before covid and sitting empty anyway so it's mostly cafes and restaurants.

I'd much rather go to a big retail centre where there is free parking and a variety of shops. I'm actually moving to a town with a big retail centre because we realised how much we dislike our current town.

But zero hour contracts are not about giving the employee flexibility but about giving the employer flexibility.

I don't agree with them, just think OP's example actually didn't make sense.

I WFH and I'm not saving on utilities - during that cold snap I had to cave a couple of times and put the heat on for an hour. Probably cost me the same as driving and parking at the office. No saving there.

My mortgage has gone up by £150 since last year. My energy bill was £300 last month and for much of December I was uncomfortably cold in my house. I posted earlier on another thread saying I'd noticed the pack of toilet roll I buy has gone up by over 10% recently. Oh, and there's a very real threat of redundancy at my company right now.

When I was working at the office I was out of the way of shops and cafes anyway. The ones I'd go to on my days off were for treats. None of those treats are affordable now. That's your issue, not people WFH.

@OutofEverything not always. I have two employees on 0 hours at their own request.

Working from home is not to blame for this. Even if everyone was frogmarched into an office, the cost of living crisis would mean many would take a packed lunch anyway. I (and many others) always take packed lunch when I go to the office.

There is a lot of unreasonable jealousy from people who can't work from home due to the nature of their job. Why should people who can work from home be forced to go into the office, to do the exact same thing they can do from home without the commute, just to put money in businesses pockets when they buy their lunch? Working from home saves employers money, is better for the environment, and helps create a better work life balance which is better for mental well-being.

The money not spent on commuting and expensive lunches is just being spent elsewhere (well, probably on the energy bills at the moment...)

But if there’s not the demand then that’s the nature of business and they will fold? The people will get other jobs. I am speaking as a ex professional cake decorator - so many popped up in covid (most likely unregistered), so many people making their own cakes now thanks to YouTube etc. So I’m doing something else now.

I think it's ok when it's an old style casual contract. When I worked in a library we had cover staff who would come in for holidays or sometimes at short notice to cover sickness. They were universally ladies of a certain age and basically worked when they wanted to, to boost their pension.

It worked well for them and for the employer.

But as a pp said, zero hours contracts are all about flexibility for the employer - and they're also not averse to bringing someone in for a 4 hour shift and then sending them home after 2 because there isn't enough work. After you've paid for a bus fare or whatever you may as well have not bothered.

I work from home but when I go into the office I take a packed lunch. DH goes into the office twice a week and takes a packed lunch as well. The only people making any money out of our commute is the rail company.

WFH has saved me tens of thousands in childcare, travel and other expenses. And I can now access higher paying jobs so our household income has gone from 70k to 150k. YABU. I am not going to lose all that because local business can't get their act together. They need to look for other avenues to make money, just like I have. I love WFH and so glad my industry had embraced it and we are all thriving!