It was reported that "Wal-Mart de Mexico was an aggressive and creative corrupter, offering large payoffs to get what the law otherwise prohibited. It used bribes to subvert democratic governance - public votes, open debates, transparent procedures. It used bribes to circumvent regulatory safeguards that protect Mexican citizens from unsafe construction. It used bribes to outflank rivals."
[...]
Every new supermarket destroys whole networks of independent shops and their suppliers, and tax avoidance by these companies, especially Walmart's Asda, is practiced on a colossal scale. Indeed, there are some notable beneficiaries of the expansion of superstore chains - the legions of highly paid lawyers and tax-avoidance experts who design amazingly imaginative methods of reducing or annulling tax payments.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
A couple of years back, I walked through the Grafton Centre in Cambridge, noting all the shops as I cut through, viewing them through my Future's So Bright Peak Oil Shades. Every one of them was selling inconsequential tat. And there's the thing - it's all discretionary stuff with overhead costs on top.
1855 Advertisement for Kier's Rock Oil -
"Hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from Nature’s laboratory."
The Future's so Bright, I gotta wear Night Vision Goggles...
Heh heh. We have a shop here called 'Essentials'. Not one single thing for sale in it is.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
Depends on how you define the word. It comes from the root "essence" meaning the very core/definition/character of something. The default assumption is that the "something" is "life itself" (as in, "water is essential"), but it could equally well be that the shop is selling things which are the essence of vaccuousness, meaninglessness, pointlessness and anomie.
Sorry for the sudden burst of exiztentialism there.
UNRULY abandoned men could become a fixture on the high street as music, technology and DVD shops collapse.
As HMV entered administration shortly after the failure of shops selling computers and cameras, experts fear there will soon be nothing in towns for men.
The Daily Mash retail analysts have overlooked the occasional forays into town for haircuts, which I mentioned before - but those will only be needed to maintain the increasingly thin veneer of civilisation for maybe another six months or so.
1855 Advertisement for Kier's Rock Oil -
"Hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from Nature’s laboratory."
The Future's so Bright, I gotta wear Night Vision Goggles...
RenewableCandy wrote:Depends on how you define the word. It comes from the root "essence" meaning the very core/definition/character of something. The default assumption is that the "something" is "life itself" (as in, "water is essential"), but it could equally well be that the shop is selling things which are the essence of vaccuousness, meaninglessness, pointlessness and anomie.
Sorry for the sudden burst of exiztentialism there.
I like that idea, I think I'll use something like that somewhere - "the very essence of emptiness." Deadly.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
The high street is in decline, but how long before all the big box retailers go too?
I know that is probably not such a bad thing (depending on your point of view), but internet shopping and corporation tax avoidance could soon put soon put all shops into decline or maybe they will go altogether!!
JavaScriptDonkey wrote:You could argue that it was the landlords that squeezed them dry
I should fecking coco. I found out last year how much rent the little charity shop where I volunteer pays. Suffice to say it's not far shy of our till takings! If it wasn't for other stuff (including internet sales) you couldn't possibly run a shop there. And a lot of these leases are of the type where, for some bizarre reason, they're not allowed to lower the rent! Yes, really.
In my local town, for a while the closed shops have been replaced with coffee shops or resturants. I think most people seem to go into town, do some window shopping, have a coffee and then back home to do "real" shopping on the internet (or drive on to out-of-town tescos).
I'm sure our local town must be past peak coffee shop by now, especially with less other shops for windowing shopping I suspect the demise of the high street in its current form is pretty close.
What happens to the elderly and the poor, who may not have, or be able to use, the internet for shopping. What about older children and teens, for whom 'going to town' is an important (and cheap) part of their social lives. What about people who work and don't have anyone at home to accept bulky deliveries, so prefer the high street? What about people who like to properly look at a product and hold it, before they choose which one to buy.
I broadly agree with you, Peter; but I do think that there will always be clothes shops and food retailers in town centres, along with the charity shops, coffee houses and pound/cheap shops.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Frederick Douglass
Peter1010 wrote:In my local town, for a while the closed shops have been replaced with coffee shops or resturants. I think most people seem to go into town, do some window shopping, have a coffee and then back home to do "real" shopping on the internet (or drive on to out-of-town tescos).
I'm sure our local town must be past peak coffee shop by now, especially with less other shops for windowing shopping I suspect the demise of the high street in its current form is pretty close.
Apparently:
- Coffee shop market grew by 7.5% in 2012, with £5.8bn in turnover
- 15,723 branded, independent and non-specialist coffee shops, such as supermarket cafes
- One in five people now visit coffee shops on a daily basis compared with one in nine in 2009
- They drink on average three cups of coffee shop coffee a week
- Three biggest chains are Costa (1,552 outlets), Starbucks (757) and Caffe Nero (530)
Every one of them was selling inconsequential tat. And there's the thing - it's all discretionary stuff with overhead costs on top.
