Has Online Shopping Helped to Destroy Our Economy?
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My city centre is dead. It used to be full every day and overflowing on a weekend. It felt like a rite of passage as a young teen to be allowed to meet with your friends by yourself in town. Now all of the shops are closing or long gone. There is no joy, no excitement at Christmas. Its constantly empty, dead.
I think this has to be in a huge way down to the convenience of online shopping. I think that convenience has destroyed our town. Created a huge loss of jobs and unemployment is on the rise. Have we, in our progress, robbed ourselves?
I think teenagers still meet up in shopping centres to spend their pocket money. I’m sure parking charges put lots off going into town especially when there are more out of town malls.
Pjran kids where i am prefer going to the morrisons and just stealing whatever they want rather than going shopping into town if I'm honest.
People's shopping habits have destroyed the economy in general. They make no effort to buy products sourced from the UK, they support many foreign companies both manufacturers and retailers but this has all been enabled by politicians because before we joined the EU we had tariffs and import quotas etc to protect our own economy and then incredibly despite all the warnings we joined a single market we couldn't compete in and had to pay billions for membership on top. We had Brexit but we never left the single market we still have a zero tariff arrangement so the huge trading deficit with Europe continues sadly.
I'm not an advocate of this but if politicians instead of borrowing money to keep topping up the economy leading to huge debts they simply refused to borrow money and our economy collapsed we would have been forced to leave the EU as it would have been so much more obvious the damage it caused and that might have happened in the 90s. The other thing normally when you are failing to compete you lower your costs so your own products are cheaper so you could approach it a different way and not have a minimum wage so the UK wages would drop to compete with European wages but that is still difficult as sterling is over-valued due to the city of London so our wages would have to be less than mainland Europe to make stuff cheaper. However if we didn't have a minimum wage which personally I'm against not having one then we could have competed better but at what expense to our people, much greater poverty. However we are so indebted now that we are probably going to have greater levels of poverty than that going forward.
Countries like Norway and Switzerland saw that the EU would be hugely damaging to them and didn't join and obviously remained super wealthy without the debts of EU countries mainly and that is the decision we should have made too but we choose economic suicide which still incredibly is supported by a lot of people who I guess have no understanding of the long term numbers.
There is still absolutely no reason we can't change policies and put much more tax on online sales and far less tax on the high street. Also currently the high street pays more tax than retail parks not through specific policies just the higher value and location of the shop means higher rents compared to big retail sheds and typically the high street has lower volume sales than retail parks. All this can be changed through government policies to create more high street jobs.
Japan very cleverly taxes small shops less so they have shops on every block it seems with goods at more competitive prices. Yes they save money going to bigger shops further away but then when you factor in transport costs it can actually work out more expensive to shop in larger stores.
We are now in a situation where a huge percentage of larger businesses are foreign owned so it makes sense to tax smaller businesses less so its more difficult for foreign owned businesses to make money here and more money goes into local communities and families.
The point is the high street can be easily repaired through well thought out tax policies but the repair process could take 10-15 years and it needs continuous policies backed by all incoming governments and our politicians are so ridiculously stupid and corrupt that perhaps the next lot will take a few back handers from Amazon and reverse any policies that benefitted the high street anyway.
We are in economic crisis and Burnham's new policy is helping out first time buyers in houses when he would have to borrow to do it and his own parties policies plus the Conservative years allowed mass immigration in the first place. This has caused chronic undersupply of housing anyway which led to the huge increase in prices that made them unaffordable. There is a undersupply of housing in the UK approaching 7 million homes. My point is Labour just like the Conservatives can't seem to prioritise tackling the big economic issues in this country. To restore jobs in the high street would be fantastic. Online sales are going to get more efficient anyway with AI and robotics so we need to tax them a lot more.
We are not even half way through the fiscal year and Labour has already borrowed close to £100 billion pounds on top of our existing debt. Will it double to almost £200 billion by April? Interest rates are going up too and the UK economy is being seen as more high risk.
In my own town centre there are hardly any shops so not worth going into any more . I used to love going round the town but unfortunately they dug it all up for over a year and it wasn’t pleasant going through it . Council fixes the paths that didn’t need doing.
I went town on Saturday which is pretty rare for me, usually go in the week. I arrived early but it did get very busy towards lunch time. A lot of shops have disappeared or gone online. I prefer shopping in store as I like to see what i am buying. I don’t like ordering online and then have to return products. I miss Wilkinsons and BHS and going further back miss Woolworths and C&A. The town was busy but I’m not sure if people are spending or just browsing for something to do.
I only go into town to shop a few times a year now. There's no shops there apart from pound shops and charity shops. If I want to go clothes shopping I need to go to the next town as there's more choice there. I tend to only go into town when I want to go to the pound shops for whatever reason. I order online now as that's the only place to get what I want without having to travel to the next town or the maybe another one. The shops all closed up. No debenhams, No wilko, no new look, etc. I think now I would say convenience took away the high street.
My local shopping centre is closed and getting flats built on it they said they will need new shops under them but I can't see it being any good as the rents gonna be high
No because every time I go into Bradford town then it's always busy no matter what time of day especially in Broadway Bradford.
M&S used to be really busy and still closed down.
No m&s in Bradford even after sending over 5 emails requesting to get 1 back.
I shop in store.
But if there's anything I can't get in store then I shop online at a last resort
Our town centre is the same, loads boarded up, all the big names have gone along with banks & building society's, replace with vape shops l, nail shops and tattoo shops, it's like a ghost town now, very sad
I do believe that online shopping is the reason most high streets are dead. It is so much more convenient to be able to order online, it is also cheaper in a lot of cases. It’s such a shame to walk down a dead high street. Sometimes I think we all have a short term mindset, without thinking of the long term implications. I guess looking back we may have been able to foresee this but the convenience is just too tempting.
Worse still online retailers such as Amazon pay very little tax, don’t care about selling items that have not passed the uk laws etc.
Yes, I rarely go to town now. There's hardly any useful shops. I used to like browsing and retail therapy around the likes of Debenhams, BHS and Beales. There's still M&S but think it's gone right downhill. There is also nowhere easy to park any more. As for Christmas it used to be exciting and atmospheric doing the gift shopping and seeing and feeling things in your own hands for the quality of the product. Carol singers and orchestras around the tall Christmas tree and lots of lovely street decorations and lights. That's now sadly all in the past and just memories now. I only shop online now because that's what everyone else wanted and it's the only way to find something these days.
I buy from a wider range of shops. I try and use amazon less and look for more British brands and shops and even independent shops where possible
Theres barely anywhere to park where i.am. what shops we've got are pretty much the more high end ones. So the lack of parking and more pricer shops have put me off my local town centre
Our local town centre is dead, mostly barbers and nail bars, I tend to shop for clothes in two local supermarkets an use Amazon at a close by pick up point. The only reason my son goes into town is to get his hair cut, he buys nearly everything online these days,
I think most towns have suffered, but they have also failed to even try to compete with the online stores, to be fair this is down in part to greedy councils and landlords with high parking costs, rates and rents that prevent shops lower prices to compete. Our local town is dead ,but an out of town retail park a few miles away is constantly busy with free parking and all the major retailers present
Online shopping and technology has ruined the world not just the economy. The same as car park fees from the council. Where I come from, car parks are free with 3000 - 3500 spaces and that's In Wales. It entices people to come to town and not rip people off.
Reminds me of COVID and lockdowns
We could not go out, to the pub, go see friends and family, all by design, everyone was scared, this created a scenario where people that who were scared to leave the house and ordered everything online
Yeovil shopping centre is worth going to I still think but its only a fraction as good as it used to be and many of my favourite shops to browse are gone. I don't get how the shops there still survive as many seem to have very few customers and when you pass them they are mainly empty. There are shops that are pretty busy though, M&S, Greggs, Costa, CEX, Burger King (why I don't know), Tesco, Aldi, Primark and a few others that seem to have a lot of customers but it seems slim pickings elsewhere.
My local council have said they want to move and apple crusher thats been in the high street for centuries. They only changed their mind cos not one person has said its a good idea. You used to get florists selling flowers from it in the summer. I do think in some places the councils are making silly decisions and its stopping people wanting to go into the town centre or be able to access it. I saw a video where people were moving out of shops because of locals saying the locals were violent and stealing and it was bad for business. Moved a few streets away and it was so much better and none of the problems. If the locals arent the best its off putting for other locals and visitors.
Theres a shop and garage i wont visit because the local kids will try and steal my car and spend their time abusing staff and shoplifting. I actually know the kids from work which makes it harder
The government robbed us - 1) they hiked up business rates, so as a seller, you’ll go bankrupt before you even make a penny on the high street, & shoppers pay more for the extra expenses 2) they made it either impossible or very expensive to park your car in city centres so it limits your visits, as well as the kind of shopping you can do, 3) they only seem to want chain retailers on the high streets, as they are the only ones that can survive paying the extortionate rent & rates. With these things considered, why would the average Joe buy in person when there are far more choices online? And no doubt the government will take their share of any money made online also
hspexy The tax system can easily be changed so online retailers pay more and the high street pays less. There is nothing that difficult about moving taxes so certain businesses pay more. Local councils have put up car parking because their income has dropped and they have huge debts, there is no long term thinking these people are completely unskilled to do their job.
Ultimately we have to live within our means, not borrow, reverse the trade deficit and pay back our debts and once this happens of course there will be far greater austerity for likely 50-100 years. There are no good options for us but we have to tackle the economy and reverse the trade deficit and waiting to do this just makes it worse in the long run. Restoring the high street should be a very high priority and we also need to lower taxes on smaller companies, single traders etc and move more taxes onto larger retailers and businesses to create room for more smaller traders to survive as so many larger businesses are foreign owned now which is toxic to our economy.
At the moment it just feels like we are running towards economic meltdown and to be honest I can't see anything changing until we have full scale economic collapse. Politicians and the general population seem to have no understanding of the economic issues. Even really simple things like trading deficits and servicing huge debts people don't seem to understand, its like people are clueless about what makes an economy do well. The real winners are Germany, China and Japan. All those economies have healthy net international investment positions of around 3 trillion dollars in surplus to their economies compared to us with having more liabilities than assets. The NIIP rating isn't as bad as it looks for us as we have a huge banking/finance sector but its still pretty horrific. Our economy would likely already have collapsed if it wasn't for the banking and finance section of our economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_position
BonzoBanana these kind of things are usually co-ordinated with a plan in mind. We peasants are not privy to the grand plan so must sit & wait for the ‘ka-boom!’ Either way, enjoy the means to be able to interact ‘freely’ for now, as soon enough that’ll change (increased use of AI will certainly sort that out). Also realised that after the initiative to keep people at home during the pandemic, that was going to kill brick & mortar businesses - more & more people now choose to work from home, so there’s no footfall in the bars, shops, cafes…and I know for a fact we workers needed a bit of retail therapy during the working day to cope with the dramas, so nowadays there’s no opportunity to step out to the shops in the working day (so more shopping online)
hspexy Always amazes me how many public sector workers work from home. Despite a huge chunk of public sector workers not having that option, teachers, police, NHS etc it turns out a huge percentage of public sector office workers work from home much more so than private sector office workers. The figures state something like 35% of public sector workers work from home where as 26% for private sector yet in reality for office workers it could be 5-6x as many public sector office workers work from home. So many public sector workers retire at 55 as well although it is rising soon I think to 57 as a minimum. I knew a NHS worker (high level nurse) and he was amazed how generous his pension was and retired at 55 so I guess it would have been even more amazing if he had stayed on longer. I think he had the chance of redundancy so that could be a factor. Huge redundancy payment and then straight into retirement.
However of course when the economy finally collapses a huge percentage of public sector workers will be out of work. It will likely be part of the IMF bailout if we need a short term loan although more likely knowing our useless politicians they will just print more money so the next economic meltdown comes around even sooner.
BonzoBanana well, politicians are known to be self serving, so I’m never surprised by the improvements made for public sector working conditions (I’ve yet to hear of a politician who wants to force people back into the office & to take a pay cut…). But yes, that gravy train will end soon enough
The rising cost of rent and basics for shops like electric and water etc has played a part too.
My town is half dead empty shops and mainly vapes, barbers and charity shops in the town.
Retail park is out of town and is always busy though.
I still do my food shop in person unless I'm unwell or it's snowed and can't get out to shop.
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