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

This to be honest.
There's a lovely shopping street near-ish to me. Too far to walk, no direct public transport. Parking expensive and oversubscribed.
So I don't go, haven't been for many years.
The lovely independent shops are slowly being replaced with Greggs and coffee shops.

Although if you think it's just temu and shein shipping in cheaply made shite, you're deluded.

Your favourite high street shops do just that, with some tweaks and marketing

How do you stop this? You don't do it by banning Shein imports btw. Anyone who thinks you do is kidding themselves.

So poor people can only use charity shops? They don’t exactly have all sizes or a choice.

I don’t know where you live but around here all the high streets are wastelands already. You can’t go back in time. High street shopping was always hell, even back when it was the only option.

The people bemoaning the loss of the high street are clearly in the minority or online stores wouldn’t be the behemoth they now are. Yes Covid sped things up but it was always going to happen in any case because the majority of people clearly don’t want to drag themselves and their families around the shops at a weekend.

Like it or not, it’s progress. If you wanted the high street to survive, enough of you should have continued to support it. But it’s too late now, it’s dead.

There was a thread recently about local councils not wanting our high streets as retail spaces, there is a drive to make everywhere restaurants and bars, with shopping centers turned into housing. We don't put conditions on businesses, such as offering proper jobs and incentives to keep smaller shops open. Trump was criticised for insisting on tax being paid on money made in the US, while we miss millions in tax, which could be used to regenerate local shopping and provide parking. There was a drive to have everything out of town, but the transport systems wasn't invested in. The will isn't there. Businesses ard profit driven and there was better returns than retail.
Who is going to prevent those working in fast fashion from dying from hunger and extreme poverty?

I know there is this idea that cheap clothes are never worn more than a couple of times. That isnt always true. I wear my clothes till they completely wear out. And they are very cheap.

Don’t forget fat people. Presumably we have to make ‘better choices’ as we are unlikely to be able to buy decent clothes.🙄

Another point. China won't go full on support for Russia because the British market is worth so much to them. Cut that market and it'll change their minds. France isn't as connected to the US as we are. We need the protection of the markets.

Sadly my high street and many others across the country already resemble the "wasteland I describe". I forgot to add, our high street is also the entertainment centre for lots of undocumented, military age, single males whose apparent hobby is leering and following teenage girls and women around in groups. It's not safe for any female to go to our high street.

I would support a levy on Shein/ Temu but it won't fix the issues of the high street alone. That requires money, investment, police enforcement of antisocial behaviour and money laundering fronts and the high street stores themselves to stock an adequate range of decent quality clothes, not just a size 8 and a size 22 and then tell everyone else to order online when asked if they have a 12?

China has been decarbonising at an absolutely storming rate, precisely to decouple itself from oil.

The NI increase and that in national minimum wage means employing staff in retail roles is a complete nightmare. If you want to support small businesses, making it cheaper to employ staff would go a long way. You can’t have thriving small businesses when employment costs are so brutal.

We can exercise by walking up and down the high street 🤷🏼‍♀️

For clothing, I'd support a financial hit being put against non-biodegradable fabrics. There is so much polyester clothing which is a) sweaty and horrible, and b) doesn't break down like natural fibres.

For shein, temu, etc, I'd love to see them taxed into non-existence. We need to get away from the ideal of buying huge volumes of cheap crap that then goes to landfill. The amount people spend on cheap clothes could buy them a couple of decent items which will last a long time. And of course there's also the risk of buying things that aren't safe.

I haven’t looked into the environmental reasons for any tax and whether it would make a difference.

My local high street, deprived Yorkshire from when the mines went is dying. The M&S is moving to the edge and will just be food. There is a next but mostly I see returns from online and I use it because the sizes aren’t available in store. We don’t have the small independent shops that might be on high street near Leeds.

I think it might revive the out of town with free parking. Apparently there was a thriving market but the council decided to close it and it became outdoor, no one goes. There are cafes, mostly chains of that to well and shopping being converted to housing which we do need as have a college.

This is about controlling the choices that you don’t approve of.

You all had your chance to keep the status quo but there weren’t enough of you prepared to it. Then you all wonder how it got to this.

Forcing people to have to buy from the high street is ridiculous. You won’t magically bring back the shops and even if you did, they wouldn’t be able to provide the same range or service that online places can. You just force those people who want or need the items they don’t stock to have less choice while you continue to happily buy what you want.

Plus I don’t miss being served by some grumpy teen on their Saturday job! (Also why self service checkouts are a brilliant invention).

My local high street has charity shops. I don't use them because it's full of shite that people have got rid of because it makes them look old and frumpy and no one else wants them.

Other sources of second hand clothes are available.

Our out of town shopping place has free parking but because it’s out of town, shops are closing down because many people don’t drive or can’t drive and the buses are shit.

So that is not so far away from going the same way as the high street.

And those sources are equally shit 😬

Indeed - but at least the irregular buses take you somewhere with more shops - that or Leeds in my area. I have a free bus pass but trains cost a fortune even with a railcard. I just can’t see the high street revival

Town 1
Free parking - great local high street. Thriving community

Town 2
Mainly out of town shopping plus charges for parking in the town centre.

Town 3
Parking charged for but great public transport options

Guess which town centre out of the three is bloody awful.

The problem here is the model for income that each of the councils favours. They seem to think that there is a captive audience and that people don't have options for where they choose to shop still.

It's crazy.

Are you kidding? Vinted and eBay have massively increased the availability and quality of second hand clothes.

In Ireland - and rest of the EU - a levy of €3 per distinct item imported from outside the EU came in, in June.

It has in my anecdotal experience vastly reduced temu/ shein 'hauls' . It was handy for a few single use items DH uses for work e.g. paint filters. But in a way I think some people were almost addicted to the thrill of it

Annoyingly in Ireland our Amazon is useless and even on the ie website a lot of stuff comes from the UK warehouse so we've to pay the €3 per item regardless. (Postage from FR/DE/ES tends to erase any saving)

100% support this. It worries me what kind of abuses in the supply chain might be going on. I realise high street brands aren’t immune but surely cheaper means more likely?

Quite possibly but neither eBay nor Vinted helps the high street anyway. So why would you buy second hand clothes online when you can buy new for cheaper including on eBay?

Just because I’m not prepared to spend lots of money on clothes does not mean I should be forced to buy other people’s skanky cast offs.

Loving all the people who claim to be able to spot Temu clothes a mile off by the way - course you can 🤣🤣

I have a top that I wear quite often and plenty of people (including those who claim they can tell cheap clothes from quality ones) have commented on it and asked where I bought it. Temu - £5.

You didn’t care enough about the high street to keep it alive - it can’t be revived so accept it and understand that forcing people to change their habits without a decent alternative tends not to go down too well