France announce a levy on SHEIN, TEMU and similar imports. AIBU to want the UK to do the same?

[AsMuchIn]

AIBU to want the UK to do the same as France, who are imposing a levy on products bought from SHEIN, TEMU, etc.

The impact on our high street (or now lack of) is massive, shops gone or as people choose cheap, poor quality, sometimes dangerous products. Less jobs in retail, empty shops, units filled with nail bars and vape shops.

The impact on the environment is also detrimental.

We are not making good choices ourselves, so bring in a levy.

France targets Shein and Temu with fast fashion fees https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2792pendro

I refuse to pay high street prices

As long as you only want the very limited range of overpriced crap, it’s fine. Or you can go online and get a massive range of reasonably priced crap.

And of course you have to make the effort to go in person and have the pleasure of surly and unhelpful staff, changing rooms which could have any random bloke in there, families of screaming and bored kids, coffee shops packed with teens, and then go home empty handed because they didn’t have it in stock.

Same.

I’m also queuing up for ages to pay and being hassled at the till to donate to charity/sign up for a membership card/give them my email.

Times have moved on. It’s good that customers now have more choice.

Thats got nothing to do with what i said - i was replying to the comment that said this
Same factories. Same people. Same problems
The same practices are used everywhere. - They are not - Shein practices are horrific and should not be used - There are plenty of better websites and shops out there that you can get what is required without resorting to Shein

But you can clearly get to shops.

How can you comment that what Amazon provides isn’t necessity? I would be fucked on many levels if I was forced to stop shopping there.

Surely it’s like self service checkouts - giving people a choice is always a good thing.

Only if you know for sure they are from better factories etc. People get misty eyed over independent little shops, not realising that some of the stuff they sell are from SHEIN or Temu.

The only reason for the way things are is that people choose what suits them. The majority of people clearly want cheap stuff without the hassle of having to go to the shops.

But according to the OP, it’s so sad that the high street is dying so we shouldn’t be shopping online.

Well, 'no' actually, people that live in your community and value connections, appreciate the existential crisis for humans who live amongst these dysfunctional societal structures, that want an antidote to the depressing self absorption of the individual, they are perfectly within their rights to want to see this change.

If they are selling shoddy stuff from Shein and Tmeu they are opening themsleves up for being fined or even worse sued as what is sold must be complianat with regualtions
Yes you are correct its the consumer who has pushed for cheap goods - this applies to everything from clothes toys food etc. They cant see past what they have in their hands. The damage is being done and the only way to change is to hit people in their pockets hence the levy EU have applied a levy etc.
There are a good few independent shops out there who do sell genuine stuff and are a pleasure to go into, the high street has changed as the world has changed there is nothing the same as it was 20 years ago, its not just online that has killed it - there are other factors too - its never going back to the way it was. But with some clever thinking councils can regenerate high streets to make it better

There have been scandals about Nike, Adidas and Apple getting their products from factories that have child, and slave, labour.

The thing is, online shopping has taken over shopping on the high street because the majority of people prefer it, for whatever reason (the main on I suspect being that it’s more convenient). So is there any sense in making it more expensive/difficult in order to rejuvenate the high street and appease the minority?

Yes, absolutely, it's like saying there is no difference between Fortnum and Mason and Iceland!

It's not a zero sum game though is it, don't bother with any ethical considerations because of them, them and them....

I mean even baby shops have disappeared off the high street. Mothercare, kiddie care, toys r us with its baby’s r us section all big names stores.

If you can’t make money out of having babies which most people have at some point in their lives within physical stores then stores are fucked.

Who wants to buy a car seat or pram online? Not many people for that but you’ll only find boutique places or the likes of John Lewis having a few on display now. Although I think my John Lewis shut down 🤔

The reasons are really important though, one of the major ones being, 'income'. High Streets aren't destroyed where there is money.

There are other online shops besides Temu and Shein.

@Holeymoley28 My BIL opened a baby shop about four years ago. It lasted less than two years, even though they were matching prices people were finding online 😔 People came in, looked at the prams ‘in the flesh’ and then went home and ordered them online 🙄

It’s a real shame especially as he was happy to match the online prices. Just used him for a showroom.

Wonder if people were adding them to their registry’s or using cash back sites to get them even cheaper.

All my big baby stuff came from kiddiecare and babies’r’us.

Was a whole day out going to the massive super store in Peterborough pretty much then out for a meal before home.

I think it’s just a warehouse now.

If it’s known much if the stuff is harmful the trading standards should stop it being sold in the UK. It won’t bring back the high street but if something isn’t a safe standard to sell then it shouldn’t be available via these sites.

I never understand why when there are discussions about drilling for oil, nobody talks about what all the plastic tat is made of. And drugs. Oil isn’t just used for fuel.

There is so much of this tat around. I cannot believe how cheap things are compared to when I was a teenager. DC bought a r-shirt for £3 from
Primark the other day, that’s not even Shein. I remember when What Everyone Wants opened in my local town when I was 17 and it wasn’t as cheap as that. DC will then spend twice that on a drink in Starbucks (and probably take a photo it before drinking it). L

I like having the physical shops, I often use them for click and collect, or even buy things in person if my size is there, we have loads of clothes shops on the retail park with free parking, though I often walk as it's not far away. I wouldn't want to have everything delivered and some go missing and have never shopped at the cheap Chinese places

It’s convenience for me, not money. We’re pretty affluent, children in independent school. I don’t have time to trawl the high street when I can just look online. I’d generally pay more for the convenience of being able to shop online.

Taxing Temu won’t bring the High street back.

We would go back to poor people buying less. It’s funny when we talk about ruining the planet with stuff we buy but it’s always targeted at low cost retailers. Never the places where people have a walk in closet filled with 40 pairs of Jimmy Choos, a dozen Gucci handbags and racks of Baleciaga clothes and Hermes scarves much of which they rarely wear. They claim their stuff is made in Italy and Spain, forgetting the fabric and textilesnare also made by workers in very poor conditions for a very low wage. Then there are the places with half a dozen cars parked outside, way worse for the planet than a dozen Shein tops.

The way we shop is driven by demand. There is a reason we don’t all have to rely on boutique shops people run as a fun hobby, and with the price of even cheap things today, it smacks of the utmost privilege to demand that poor people stop buying things they can afford.

The tax on Shein/Temu isn’t working in France, They just ship via Belguim instead.

Lots of things are dirt cheap today compared to 30 years ago. Food isn’t nor is energy or houses, those essentials are extortionate, but lots of things cost fuck now.

But people shop as a hobby to a much greater extent now and to not be able to do that genuinely is a form of social exclusion (am not taking the piss).