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Some shops really don't seem to realise they need to appeal to potential customers. Restaurants with no menu in the window, or with no prices, for example. Or that are only open at inconvenient times, like a card shop near me that was between 3 primary schools and the station, so loads of parents walking past at 9am.
Didn't open until 10, shut before 5.30, so no commuters walking straight past could ever use it.
Local cheese shop opened, and struggled because Covid kicked off again and spouse got ill and such. But they quicky realised people wanted to pop in after getting off the train from work, and grab something for dinner. So they have a £20 'cant be arsed to cook' deal, cheese, bread, some olives or something, and a bottle of wine, and they stay open until 8pm on Wednesdays to Fridays, not opening on Monday until 3pm. Immediately doubled their trade.
And have a sandwich of the day for people to buy to take to work, and then got a coffee machine. They're thriving, which is lovely.
The ‘can’t be arsed’ factor is so real. Used to live where there was a great Italian between the house and the station but wasn’t busy midweek. Turns out once people get home that’s it. They can’t be arsed to go out.
Suddenly an ‘early dinner’ menu from 5-7 ish and the place was rammed.
>Restaurants with no menu in the window, or with no prices, for example.
This is my number one peeve. Either that or a deli/sandwich place with 30+ menu items hand written on a chalk board above the counter but God forbid you spend a minute trying to read it without being harassed. You should have known what you wanted before you came in! Somehow.
There's a little restaurant that I walk past all the time that always smells great and the menu looks great from the outside. But I've never been in because they don't put their prices on the outside menu, so I'm worried that I'll get sat and then realise that the food is completely out of my budget.
See also: trendy cafes that don't actually explain what their kitschy menu items are beyond listing abbreviated ingredients.
17 avo, smash, organic yogurt, nduja
Is it a sandwich? A salad? A soup? Served on a bed of drywall screws?
Nothing makes me go full boomer than the millenial urge to be inscrutable.
There used to be a tiny, really basic sandwich shop near me that was always packed out the door, and it was cheap and you could see them make the sandwich and add what you wanted to it!! I miss those places! And I miss the chicken mayo with sweetcorn and cucumber that I would get every Saturday on my lunch break!!
I once knew someone who lived in a small village. The butcher, the cheesemonger, etc all botched at council meetings about people shopping at Morrisons instead of at their shops. Want to know what they absolutely refused to do? Be open at times people could shop.
They would rather blame the customer for wanting cheap and convenient food (and why is that wrong!) than actually listen and rethink their business model.
Absolutely this. My parents like in a small town. There's a couple of successful businesses (pub, butchers, nice shoe shop) that have reasonable displays of their offerings, opening times, reasonable items that local people would want.
There's also a string of batshit businesses (purse shop, crystal shop, shite cafe that's closed most of the time) that cannot possibly get enough custom in, are visually forbidding or ambiguous and functionally inaccessible.
I also think activities, not retail are the way to go. Soft play, zumba, gyms are all the rage and need a physical premises. Yet people seem determined to open up retail shops selling tat at thrice the price of Amazon.
Another thing that I find inconvenient about shopping local is the inconsistent hours. What do you mean that you're a cafe and your hours look like this?
Monday - CLOSED
Tuesday- 12pm to 2pm
Wednesday- 10am to 11:30am
Thursday - CLOSED
Friday - 9am to 11:30am
Saturday - 10:30am to 4:30pm
Sunday - CLOSED
And then they complain about not getting the footfall
This is a real problem - far too many people think running your own business is easy street. Sell up the place in London to live mortgage free out in the boonies then get angry that the locals simply can't appreciate the brilliance of your charming cafe with exposed brickwork and those funny lampshades that serves flat whites and shit. Far too many of those kind of businesses out there and thry nearly always fail.
Not only do independents tend to have inconsistent or baffling opening times, they also will often just decide to close early or not open at all. I hate having to check social media before I set off just to see if they've posted that they're closed. I live in an area with lots of small businesses and struggle to actually get in and support them.
There's a French bakery/café in my town, run by a genuine French couple. Now we love boulangeries so *would* go there lots, but they dont open until 10am, and close at random times. I mean what bakery DOESN'T open until after breakfast??!
After a couple of visits to find it closed we stopped bothering.
This is my absolute pet peeve about Glasgow southside cafes. Only 3 of the 30 or so cafes near to me are open before 9am and only one before 8am so it gets all my business.
There's a fishmonger that my partner's dad inexplicably shares posts from every day (not sure why, he barely eats fish), and they have no set opening hours whatsoever. They just post at whatever time saying "morning, we are now open until (usually 2-3 hours later)". I found it so infuriating and I scrolled back on their page a bit to see if there was some kind of pattern to when they opened and couldn't find one. Just different opening times every day, usually different from whatever time they opened at on that day last week or the week before. So are people meant to just sit and wait for this post? Or what? And when it's such a short window of time, are you meant to drop everything to hoof it to them?
Our local shop is like that. I've stopped visiting because they're so unreliable. They say they open 8am-8pm every day, but if its the owners working and not the staff, its anyone guess when they'll open or close. Right pain on a Sunday morning at 8.30 when you're trying to buy some food for work and the supermarkets are all closed.
Out local fish and chip shop is also closed every Sunday and every other Saturday which just seems a bit silly to me.
Weeks before our daughters birthday, we'd figure we'd give our local toyshop a go, and it was a Saturday, inlaws looking after our daughter.
Walk into town & it's closed.
It's open 10am-2pm Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri, closed Wed/Sat/Sun lol
There's a chippy near me that had weird hours like this, you were never sure if it was open for lunch or dinner
They closed down from lack of trade
Someone took over, made it a fashionable chippy with fancy chicken goujons and garden peas with your fish etc
Same weird opening hours
A chippy opened near my previous home a couple of years. Their hours were from 5pm till midnight. And they're near a pub. Rammed to the brim every day!
A couple of our local supermarkets now have key cutting machines, which set off a big debate on the local Facebook group when the owner of the local key shop and his mates complained about what this would do to his business.
He didn't appreciate it when people pointed out that they could now actually get keys cut, because he only seemed to open his shop when he felt like it...
If parking is 90p I don't think that's what's keeping people away.
I don't tend to shop local because there's no real local shops. The corner shop is 50% out of date stuff and 100% over priced. I'll visit the local farm shop maybe once a month because they have great sausages but that's about it. I work during the day and go shopping in the evening, the local butcher shop and fruit and veg shops aren't open.
I think the UK does badly with parking. Something I once saw in Portugal, was a large car park near a beach (with other nearby businesses) setting their prices as something like:
€0 = 30m
€1 = 60m
...
€5 = 4 hrs
€15 = all day
Which makes more sense to me, because I'd be put off paying to park if I just wanted some groceries, or a sandwich but happy to pay a nominal fee to stop and get lunch or whatever and if your going to the beach or parking all day then pay more for occupying that space for an extended period.
Locally we have free street parking ranging from 30m to 2 hours though there's not enough of it. Luckily there's a good range of shops though, so that helps footfall.
Some of the car parks at larger stores/malls had cover over the parking, which had solar panels on the roofs. Kept the cars cooler during the day (or drier when it’s raining), free electricity… why don’t we have _anything_ like that here?
Also, they know how to drive over there. I don’t think I saw a single lane hogger for two weeks.
Cycle Parking also.
I'm not expecting shops to put racks in themselves but if the councils put a few bike racks outside the shops they say are struggling I'd go more often.
Well, back in my home country every decent shop has at least a couple of simple bike racks put by the shop owners. They cost a hundred quid or so (small ones), there's absolutely no reason not to install them.
My problem is too much parking and too many cars in the high Street. It's no fun going to the High Street which clogged with cars. Get rid of parking and pedestrianise it during the day
Yeah I don’t really have many local shops. Unfortunately the local shops that are about charge more for the essentials I want. I don’t earn enough money or have the time to have the luxury of shopping locally rather than a large supermarket.
I've seen research before that found that local business owners tend to overestimate the impact of parking charges on their business. It's one of those things people say, but the evidence for it is pretty weak.
As for shopping local, I always find it a meaningless phrase tbh. What it tends to actually mean is 'shop at expensive and niche independently owned business'. And sure, I occasionally pop into some of the lovely independent shops on my high street. But with the prices they charge and the limited range they carry, I'm never going do all my shopping there.
Sure, it would be nice to always support the local independent butcher or cheesemonger or deli. But the prices they charge mean I just can't do all my food shopping there, even putting aside the inconvenience.
It's probably because it's easier to blame an outside factor rather than something you can directly control (like opening hours, offering, your manner).
My local area has got Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. My local corner shop is convinced it's ruining trade. The place is always busy. Has everything you need in an emergency and is 8 minutes walk from any other corner shop. No one should ever drive to it. Seems like bullshit complaints to me
If people are going to go to the effort of driving, they'll drive to the out of town supermarket.
They won't get in, drive 30 seconds, and then drive halfway back home again to find a parking spot to go to the corner shop that doesn't have as wide a variety.
Most of the local businesses round my area provide a worse service, at inconvenient times and cost more.
I'll give them a go, but if they're not going to work for me, why should I continue to patronise them?
To be honest when the only thing I see about a business is them constantly whinging about the council, or demanding compensation for the disruption from roadworks they also demanded, I make a mental note never to visit them again.
I agree with the worse service.
We tried to use a clothing store on our local market to buy cotton Pjs for my nan. They didn't have the size/colour she wanted in stock but said they could order if for us, would take 2 weeks.
2 weeks later we go back, they don't have them yet try next week. Okay, try again, oh it will be another 2 weeks because there is a supplier issue.
Try 2 weeks later, the lady running it is not there she has gone to get a tattoo. Baring in mind the market is only open 3 days a week she could have gotten a tattoo another time. Dude covering the store has no idea where any orders are. Go back a week later and the order is there, yaaay, only not, its the wrong colour and size ordered.
Gave up in the end and ordered the exact colour and size she wanted online, next day delivery. I've seen the lady moan on local FB groups about people not supporting local. I've also seen the fruit and veg store holders buying stock in the local Sainsburys then selling it at a large mark up.
The cafe across the road from my house recently closed. We popped in a couple of times a day because convenience & getting away from the desk but every time we went in the owner ranted about a lack of customers or the council or something & I ended up dreading going there as I didn’t want to be cornered & ranted at every time I wanted a coffee. In the end we just got a nice coffee machine & stopped going. Shame it closed but actively putting customers off isn’t a great business strategy
We've gone to a couple of local cafes for lunch on a Saturday (only option when you work full time). Nothing much left on the menu as they close Sunday and Monday so are trying to use up the fresh food. Coffee and a jam sandwich then.
I typically work 08:30 to 17:00. All the local shops open 9am to 5pm...parking doesn't come into it (even with the 1 hour free we get).
Even if most people were to want to nip into our town the poor traffic situation means they cannot guarantee keeping it within a normal lunch hour, so many don't bother. The traffic backup is normally caused by vehicles unloading in prohibited areas due to a lack of enforcement of unloading restrictions by all the bodies (councils and police who just point the finger at each other).
I try to 'shop local' when I can, but when there's a pack of ham I could get at asda for like £1.50, and that same pack of ham is in a local shop (for local people) costs £5.00, I'm gonna have to choose asda. I can't afford to always shop local, as much as I would like to.
The premium cost for all locally made items really turns me away from shopping local. I wish I COULD shop local more often.
This is my thinking. Local, independent shops tend to be artisanal so the price is much much higher. I'm not currently in a position to be able to drop £10 on a block of cheese that is going just going to be grated into a Macaroni Cheese, so it tends to be occasional - Christmas, birthdays etc.
Yeah, I'll get the occasional treat out of a local shop if I have the money or it's coming up to a national holiday.
My last local purchase was in December 2023 and it was a 200g jar of homemade quince jelly, bought from a friend's market stall for £6.00. It's tucked away in a cupboard and only taken out for VERY special occasions.
I didn't want to get into an age thing but it's difficult when on this topic, but our town's main focus seems to be towards old age tourists that have cash to splash.
Shop owners are consistently against the pedestrianization of a car park bang in the middle of town, because it means customers will have to park a whole minute away, instead of on the doorstep of their shops.
It’s easy to say you’d shop local if it was available i.e you had a butchers, bakery, grocers etc.
However, even if you put the cost aside, it is massively inconvenient in comparison to the one stop shop.
I still think small businesses have a place but they’re never gonna be the mainstream choice, so the USP has to be around the quality of their products.
The locals here all blamed the parking charges for why they don't go to town, it was only 50p a day.
The council has since put a free, 4 hour carpark in, now people moan it's actually the 'new' one way system that puts them off. The one way has been here for as long as I've lived here, and most people I know here don't remember it being two-way.
To me it just feels like an excuse, because they want to support the local town as long as it has no impact on them.
There's talks of the council providing free parking & I upset the locals by saying "I wonder what shops will use for as an excuse now" and funnily enough, people are starting to complain about trying to pedestrianize a 10-spot car park in town lol
Ultimately, 90% of the shops in town are rubbish and overpriced but nobody wants to admit it because they're clinging to the memory of it being a successful market town in the 80s.
When the local butchers closed down, I saw so many people say how much they used to love going out the butchers in the 60s-90s and that it was a travesty it's closing, but it's only closing because those same people stopped going there.
At least I had my excuse, I'm vegetarian.
Yep! By that logic make bus free too
If 50p-£2 parking puts folk off then blame customers. My city is free on a sunday yet dead except cafes/bars/restaurants
To some extent but business rates and rents do favour big supermarkets and the big shops do also bully local councils for unfair advantages. They also spend a fair bit lobbying government for legislative benefits.
In general I agree with you but I think on a fair playing field local shops would be more competitive even without the economies of scale and buying power of the big supermarkets.
But you might get even better prices in a fair competition. For example my local farm can't supply my local shop because the majority of their business is with a supermarket who won't work with them without an exclusive arrangement. So in terms of costs the local shop could be cheaper.
Then if you can't beat them on price beat them on quality, or service.
Plenty of people will pay extra if there's a perceived benefit to doing so, simple fact is most independent businesses just aren't good businesses and frankly it's not surprising they struggle.
To an extent yeah I support it.
But locally the shops are mostly barbers, vape shops, phone repair shops and then stuff like Greg's
I usually park in the supermarket and walk in as well, so parking charges isn't an issue in going into town
I do go get my lunch most days from the local deli. It's over the road and better than getting the pre-made sandwiches from co op
Shop owners putting their prices up ridiculous amounts and then complaining they don't get customers is ridiculous to me. No one is gonna spend £20 on cheese everyday
I WANT to BUT as said on here…
Many close sunday to wednesday, many are still cash only and share cash is king twaddle on social media, many only sell niche whimsy things as opposed to things i want/need
Our town has a big rivalry between new local retail and non retail. The footfall here is cafes, bars etc. not shops selling fancy notebooks, quirky cards/pens etc
I work 10am to 5pm every weekday. I find it's a pain to get the odd time off to book dentists and doctors appointments, let alone going to shops that seem to only want to be open in the usual business hours.
Only the larger shopping centers seem to be open after 5:30 and a bigger reason I go to them rather than anywhere else.
I'm happy to shop local, but the local shops have to make it easy for me to do it.
Every year we get the "use it or lose it" sob story from the local market traders association. Every year it's pointed out that it's hard to "use it" when "it" is only available between 10am and 3pm on Thursday. But they won't have it that's the problem, and we all should feel guilty for using Amazon and Tesco.
I live in a commuter town. Most of the shops only open after most of the commuter trains have gone, and most close before those afternoon commuter services arrive. I really don't understand how these shops expect people to use them.
Yeah I remember a local coffee shop being like oh no we have to close but it was also like you guys barely advertised and no one really knew about you
They were also a fairly boogie place as well so even more of a limited market
Local shops haven't been competitive or viable for years upon years upon years upon years. Supermarkets and online shopping are far cheaper and more convenient all around than a scattering of local/village/high street shops. As a consumer my role is finding a balance between the best quality for the lowest price in the most convenient way for me. If a local shop can't provide, I'm not shopping there. If the store closes because of lack of custom, it is what it is. The high street should have been left to die with dignity 2 decades ago.
The big truth that shop owners don’t want to admit is that a fair number of people hate shopping. I hate shopping. In a world where I could a) go out and do something I hate or b) have it brought to me for free or next to nothing I’m obviously going to pick B. I don’t want to lug shopping around from shop to shop. I don’t want to pay for parking. I don’t want to mingle with others or run the gauntlet of charity bell ends bothering me as I wander round. Fill my local high street with as many shops as you want, but I’m not going to them. I have zero need to go and use it.
Yeah there's a Italian deli, a Spanish deli and an art supply shop near me that I go to regularly.
Not so much for other stuff. Clothes for example, there simply aren't any places that sell the kind of stuff I want.
The town nearest us sounds very similar to what you describe. Lots of local businesses going under and each one of them blaming the parking charges.
None of them ever consider that the issue may be their higher prices, or the fact they are only open during the hours most people are at work.
And this is why I say let the high street die, if it is not willing to make changes it has control over and instead just blame outside factors then it deserves to go the way of the dodo.
Parking wasn't a consideration for me before I had kids, but now it absolutely is for anywhere that's not walking distance from my house (and I draw a wide radius, happy to walk up to an hour with the pram). And according to my husband who works on marketing/advertisement, I'm a high value consumer for small local businesses as a middle class mother with high disposable income and a lot of time on my hands! I'm definitely the type to be buying random stuff from the gift shop and £20 cheese.
I can afford a small parking charge but I still go out of my way to avoid it if there's alternatives and I'm much more willing to go somewhere if there's free parking. Because whilst it's only 90p an hour here and there, I'm out every day at different shops and cafes, and that'll quickly add up to maybe £20+ a week!
Other people who are also likely to be high value customers are older people with time like the near retired and OAPs (who are probably your customers for all those antique shops!).
So I think whilst parking isn't an issue for some, I suspect it disproportionately affects the most valuable consumer base for the businesses you've cited. Young people who can walk or get public transport, working age people who are at work during those shop's opening hours, they are not the high spenders.
If you grudge a 90p parking charge so would rather buy meat from a supermarket than a butcher, you're not their target clientele regardless of what your husband says about you being 'a high value consumer'. You might have high disposable income but taste also factors into these things.
I and many others would pay for parking to buy cheese from a local cheese shop or meat from a butcher because its better than what I get at the supermarket and the price difference isn't huge. If you can't see the value in that then you're not a target customer.
You said working age people are not the high spenders. What even is 'working age people'? People who have jobs can have high disposable income too and its not just stay at home Mums who have money to spend. Such a weird take.
times change, people work more hours these days and don't have time or inclination to go to the shops, especially when you get everything delivered for much cheaper.
I used to like to go to shops to look at and feel the quality of the products, but half the time they don't hold any stock and you have to order online anyway.
Towns should move on from being "shopping centric" and try to be more social centred.
I want such business owners to remain encouraged to start these businesses but at the same time I'm not going to go out of my way to use one of them just because they're small/local.
I used to hate that sign people would always share, something like "When you use a large business you're funding a new car and an expensive holiday. When you support a small business you're helping little Susie get new shoes for the ballet" or some shit. As if the people serving you in Tesco and McDonalds are driving home in a Tesla to sort their next trip to the Bahamas.
>they are absolutely adamant that it's parking charges that are killing their business and nothing else
This, I believe, is what the youngsters call "cope".
We get the same complaints where I live (parking £0.50 an hour, tops out at £1 - you can literally park all day for a quid and there's 2 *free* car parks a very short walk from the town centre) but that doesn't seem to explain why the deli, food places, florists, butchers, bakery etc and even several pubs are all thriving whilst the dusty old "antiques and collectibles" place which has no online presence, sells very niche things and has opening hours which amount to "when the owner feels like it" has closed down (this actually happened in my area and the latter had a very public meltdown about lack of support for small businesses, parking charges etc, basically everything but "maybe people just don't want this stuff").
It's almost like people are happy to support local amenities if they're a) good and b) meet an actual demand in the area.
So to answer your question, yes, fully happy to support local businesses but not just for the sake of it. I definitely appreciate having amenities on my doorstep and recognise you have to support them to an extent to keep it that way but far too many small business owners seem to think people are obligated to come in and spend at their shop just because.
If I had a local cheesemonger or butchers or beer/wine merchant then yes I would because I'm a middle class wanker who likes posh cheese beer and meat, but the nearest ones of all of those would be a further drive away than several supermarkets. What I do is make the occasional special trip to a farm shop, but I'm not doing my weekly shop anywhere near that.
But gift/antique shops I have literally zero interest in them, I wouldn't shop locally in those as I'm not buying gift tat or antiques anyway. Those aren't really designed for the locals, they're designed for people from out of town.
I don't "shop" local generally because I don't have any need for haircuts in 8 different places, I don't gamble so the plethora of betting shops is no good to me. I don't need a tattoo etc etc. I use the chippie on occasion, and maybe the afro-Caribbean store a couple of times a year for more exotic cooking ingredients but that's about it.
I would if they had what I wanted and needed regularly and were also open when i wanted to go, for example I know its not a common every day item but I need some replacement plugs for my sinks and I've been in so many different shops and they don't have them or they say they do online but when I turn up they're nowhere to be found.
My town has the same issue and traders are constantly complaining about parking despite the car parks being full and footfall basically as the same as pre-covid. The shops that get good business are a new factory type shop, robert dyas, Greggs etc.
We had a lovely record shop that closed down - I bought something once or twice but not regularly but it wasn't parking fees that stopped me doing it. People are not going to into boutique shops every day, if at all.
There’s a nice record shop near me, the guy who owns it was saying how he nearly closed down when Covid first hit as he hadn’t really been profitable in a few years and he thought it was going to be the last nail in the coffin.
Then someone convinced him to buy a fancy coffee machine, put a little bar in at his front doors and sell takeaway coffee to the pedestrians walking past. It paid his rent and bills all through Covid and it now brings in loads of new customers who regularly buy the music memorabilia and records while they drink their coffee
Shop local is all well and good if you're well off and retired.
But me, imma order something in bed and have it waiting in my porch when I get up thanks very much 😂
Sorry dead high street but did you even try?
I'll go in a local shop that specialises in something such as a great local cheese shop, butchers and a local outdoor shop which is really knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. I don't go in local shops where they buy random stuff from Amazon, put a 50% mark up on it and spend all their time moaning on the local Facebook page that no one wants to support their dream of running a local shop.
High Street is changing or so it seems in a lot of towns. More catered towards eateries / bar's and the night-time trade as opposed to daytime more recently.
Shop local is fine - if the product is just as good and a similar price, 9/10 times it is not. Can't just expect people to buy from you at any price and quality just because its a local business. Super entitled way of thinking for a lot of these local businesses.
I think it depends where you are. I live in Edinburgh and the city centre parking charges range from £5 - £8.20 per hour.
That put a stop to me shopping in town.
There is only one bus from where I live (still within the city) but they only run every 45 mins, and then add in shopping bags to carry = nope.
Lots of shops, bars, restaurants and cafes closing.
I try to shop local, but a lot of the stuff is shite or open weird hours.
I wanted to go to a yarn shop nearby, but it was only open till like 3 pm at the latest 4 days a week. The zero waste shop had hardly anything in it, and a chippy nearby is closed before 2.
I think the problem is, the town center used to be a place to go - like you say there was a *reason* to go into town. HMV, Woolworths, M&S, Game whatever.. there was a reason to go in and do things. Lots of those shops have gone bust or moved out of the town because of rents, or a lack of footfall (with COVID hammering that nail in hard).
So now the places thriving in town are all casual services, like the post office.. coffee shop.. lunch places etc (but low-value). Your example of a cheese shop is an expensive (but probably lovely!) place that people generally wouldn't go into town for exclusively. The sort of place you'd go to when you was in town after picking up some bits for a party, new top.. some drinks and get some nice cheese for that.
That initial reason to go into town, is kinda gone. So the niche shop suffers as a result. You're then in the position of, you want to appeal to anyone who will come - and if they're coming in just for that, parking is suddenly a concern (because before they were coming into town anyway). It's not the money that's the issue, it's a perceived inconvenience for popping into a single shop.
Off-ish topic but related, I am 34 and I remember town being relatively good - you could go in and get most things you wanted. These days, I barely ever go into town or just out to get things which I think is really sad. But, the last 20+ times I've had to go out and get something.. I've come home and had to order it on Amazon, town really isn't what it was and this is a chicken and egg issue.
Example, I needed a box to return a faulty hard drive. I went to 7 shops (tesco's, whsmith, post office) and I literally couldn't buy a suitable box. That was a *massive ballache* whereas I'd have just gone to Staples before. I may well understand the reasons why they went out of business, but it doesn't change the fact It's created a problem I can't fix.
We're moving to a smaller village in the next month, the thing I'm most excited about is having a butchers, bakers, farm shops.. all on our doorstep which do seem to be thriving.
No, I think businesses exist to cater to their customers and if they can't do that they shouldn't exist. I remember where my parents live there used to be a number of shops which sold porcelain figurines which I imagine must be hobby shops as no one ever went in them.
That's my line of thinking too.
I would just to see a scenario of one of these shop owners needing something done, like having a kitchen installed, and see if they'd go with a local fitter costing £1000, or a fitter from another city for £950, I can guarantee they'd go for the cheaper option.
Fashion is my problem. I try to stop locally but the stuff i want to wear isn't necessarily what's fashionable so it's hard to get hold of. I begrudgingly resort to online shopping if i really have to.
I hate online clothes shopping because I like to feel what the clothes are like before i buy them.
There are zero mens clothing in town at all. We have a Morrisons on the outskirts, that has some black work trousers, socks/underwear and about 3 t-shirts, all none in my size.
My wife went to look at a clothes shop in town aimed for women, and dresses were £60-120, and tops being £30.
Once they open outside of office hours, and aren't closed for 50% of most people's non-working days, I'll be more than happy to support independent shops.
I'm afraid I don't have studies to link right now, but pretty much all the research suggests that anti-car measures (parking charges, pedestrianisation) have no worse than a negligible impact on footfall.
My local town charges for parking which is a bit of a walk into town. Town consists of a post office (doesn’t open until 10), a small Boots, a bakery, a small spar and co-op, and the rest are a mixture of gift shops, antique shops, hairdressers and barbers, cafes, Indian restaurants and a Chinese takeaway, pizza place and a fishing tackle shop. So not much in the way of shops.
That's pretty cheap for parking so I'd doubt its the charge itself...
But if paying to park means having to use ancient coin only machines which then print a ticket then you've added a layer of faffing about to just parking.
How far away is your nearest other town and what are their parking charges? This makes a difference. I own a number of shops and closed one recently as the trade was going one town over where there was 2 hours free parking.
Nearest are cities, so significantly different in sizes, but parking for 2-3 hours is usually £3.00-4.50. However, they do pretty much accommodate to every shopping desire.
I agree with most people here. Love shopping local. But a lot of local shops in a lot of towns are predominantly useless. It's never the parking. I just need somewhere I can get a few screws and unfortunately here,that's B&Q or wilko
I do if it's worth it. I love some of the local shops. I draw the line at shops that are just rip offs because the owners don't know how to manage their money to make ends meet and put the financial burden on the customers.
I work in the food/wholesale industry and I know for a fact that cooperative supermarket with it's positive ethics buys butter from the same supplier as me for £50 a case of 40, and they're trying to sell it on at £6 a stick. Get in the bin.
Same with independant bars. I know you can't get the same beer prices as Spoons. Spoons has 70 year contracts with certain breweries to get their prices so low, but £6.90 for a pint of doom bar, if it doesn't come with a plate of sausage and mash, it's a waste of money.
Our town has free parking up to 2 hours and the local shops are still dying, the high street is near nonexistent nowadays.
As much as I try to shop local where possible, I work mon-fri 9-5 which is a lot of the time 90% of the shops opening hours. It's easier for me to buy from small businesses online where I can have items delivered to my house or a pick up point than it is going round each little shop in my town on the off chance they have the item I need.
I live in a town centre with plenty of decent shops and a large market. I do mostly use Tesco and M&S for food, B&M and The Range for household. But I also buy a lot of fish, meat and produce at the market and other local shops. I prefer the local (non-chain) restaurants.
Near my Aunt's in South Wales the local council removed the parking metres planning on replacing them only to realised that the new ones weren't available for two months.
Shop owners reported a SIGNIFICANT uptick in sales, in some instances almost doubling.
It does seem to impact. I believe local councils should offer free parking for the first hour and then increase the price of subsequent hours.
Sadly there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of data in our town to be used as actual evidence.
BBC recently did an article and the collective outcome was that shop owners lost between 10% to 75%, which summarises as "we've barely lost any customers" to "we've lost nearly all our customers", which is pretty terrible evidence due to how broad it is.
However, it's worth noting the shop that lost 10% of it's customers is a fruit & veg shop, which is on the front of the road works, and the 75% was an antique shop, that isn't.
I do what I can. My barber is awesome and ridiculously helpful. He knows people have work etc so I can get an appointment anywhere from 7am - 7pm on most days.
Whenever I do get my haircut I then nip to the local florist and get my wife some flowers (if they're open).
My local chemist is great, even giving me some hydrocortisone cream on a tab because their card machine was down and I didn't have my wallet on me.
I wouldn't expect 90p an hour parking to put people off. It's more likely the kind of shops they are. Antique shops - luxuries, gift shops - novelties, charity shops - pot luck / low end.
They aren't the kind of shops that bring people into places...
I do think where I live has a really great selection of local independent groceries, fishmongers, butchers, cafes, gift shops, restaurants, wine bars etc. I do shop local when I can but it is a very pedestrian area which makes this possible. If I go to my fave coffee shop I might have a quick browse in the charity shops etc. too. Main issues I have with independent shops is inconsistent opening hours and cost compared to the supermarket (though I would happily pay a wee bit more).
One zero waste shop near me I really tried to frequent but the opening hours made it really difficult.
The idea of shopping local is great, but in reality it’s expensive and inconvenient. All my local independent shops (the butcher, the greengrocer, the deli etc) all open 10-5 Monday-Friday, 10-1 Saturday. As someone that works 9-5 Monday to Friday, I could do the whole “shop local” thing on Saturday mornings, but frankly I’ve got little incentive to try and cram going to multiple shops in the fairly tight window of Saturday morning around anything else I’ve got on, and pay more for the privilege, rather than getting a click and collect order from Tesco to get everything from the same place and pick it up whenever suits me.
I try to shop locally for things. I want local businesses to thrive as it's convenient and the place looks awful when all the shops are empty and boarded up.
However, I now refuse to shop anywhere that only takes cash and that's a lot of local places around here. It's 2024. I don't have time to search for a cash machine, withdraw more cash than I need and then walk around with change I'm never going to use. There's no reason except tax evasion not to take card payments now.
There's also the problem of me working full-time and local shops shutting long before I finish work, if they're open that day at all.
I also like a bit of predictability. I used to go to the local sandwich place but they change name and menu constantly. I don't have time to read a whole new menu every time I'm on lunch break. Most of these places don't have a website. If you're lucky they'll have a facebook page that's a year or two out of date.
So yeah. I do try but my god do they make it hard.
Yes, shop local. If local doesn't have good shops, move or open your own shop.
It's unsustainable to continue trucking stuff out to people who want the amenities of a city while living miles away from one.
I live in an area with loads of great shops nearby in the suburbs of Newcastle. Top quality butchers, beer shops, a decent bakery a little bit further out, but a few local shops sell their bread anyhoo. Most of these places are within walking or cycling distance and I'm more than happy to pootle about for the better quality products. The biggest problem is that these places close at 6pm and I get out of work at 5. Unfortunately, that does mean that the supermarket wins out sometimes.
parking charges are a lot to blame . When it costs more to park than to have a home delivery off the internet, then sometimes its a no brainer !
Councils seem bent on extracting as much as possible from us . ok, the parking is only a £ or 2, but the real fear of the shopper is getting a parking FINE. Before you leave home, you start the anxiety of ensruing you have the righ way to pay - card, coins ( and have you got the RIGHT amount, they HATE giving you change !), or app -have I got the right app, and does my network have a good signal there?
Agree on the shops too - gambling shops, charity shops and a Greggs / Subway - what to go to town for even?
Yea I try my best to shop local. I use the local DIY shop that cuts keys, etc instead of timpsons, try and buy from there instead of b&q or b&m, there’s a fish van every Saturday, I use the small locally owned pharmacy instead of boots. Sounds like we live in similar towns! I stay in the town centre though and don’t drive so, I’m the perfect customer really.
Shop local and buy British ...local councils are the problem, too much official party policy and not enough bringing money into towns to generate jobs and prosperous environment
Well they can continue blaming that and do nothing and think they're completely helpless and see how it ends
If the situation is worsening and they aren't adapting or trying to change then that's a bit stupid really. If the world changes and I fail to change with it, that's on me not the world surely
My town has free parking after 15:30 and on Sundays for the council carparks which helps a little.
I try to support local businesses but it's hard work.\
I wanted a new bedframe so went to the local bed shop, it would be a 4-6 week wait and they kept no stock onsite. Drove 5 mins down the road and got one from Argos.\
Similarly I wanted an electric oven rang the local appliance store as there website is crap. We don't keep stock of that size and it would be a few days at least and cost £100+ more. I went online got one delivered next day.
I have lived in a town of 16k circa 2011 so probably closer to 20k now, for 3 years. We moved from Hong Kong where we had been for 10 years. Everything was purchased local in HK as online purchases are terrible.
Since being in the UK we buy off the web a lot, well my wife does. We moved 10 mins outside the town to an islolated house. Amazon packages arrive daily thanks to my wife. I am not a fan of Amazon but do buy things from there or other online stores from time to time.
I like to buy certain things in town. Pop to the butcher at the weekend which always has a queue. The toy shop is a must if my son is with me. But other than that, we do a big supermarket shop 1-2 times a week. Other than that and a haircut I am struggling to think of things in town we can't get off the web.
I appreciate that local shops aren’t able to charge low supermarket-type prices for their goods as they often have higher overheads and less wholesale purchasing power. I’m not salty that they can’t compete, but as a consumer, I’m suffering from the cost of living crisis as much as the next person, and I simply have to keep costs as low as I can. Which sadly means supermarket shopping for food most of the time.
Occasionally I will treat myself to something local, but it’s exactly that - a treat (because the quality is usually better as well!), not my regular shopping.
These days we are used to the convenience of one-stop-shopping and actually it would be very hard to physically carry a week’s worth of groceries for the family, so schlepping around the individual shops isn’t very practical. Getting in the car and driving to the one shop where you can buy almost everything in one go saves time.
I live so close to town - about half a mile - that driving into town and parking in order to shop there would be a waste of time (and money - parking is pretty expensive where I am). The car parks are barely nearer the shops than my house is! It’s a bit far to bring back 4 bags for life full of milk and tins and whatnot, and I hate getting in the car to drive half a mile, it’s so non-environmentally friendly even if it does mean you can shop local.
Now most households have all adults working unless they have a disability, so there is no one to traipse into the town every day. In the past I guess it would have been a big part of your social life too; rather than being ‘stuck at home’ you would chat to a whole bunch of people in the local community, shopkeepers and friends you met on your way. And it’s good exercise. These days who has time to do that every day?
Almost exactly the same happened in my town. Council pedestrianised an area and improved pavements, loads of roadworks and of course it took longer than usual. On-street parking was unavailable during that time and shop fronts were obscured.
You should have heard them wail and whine that the council decimated the local business scene - the paper ran stories about all the shops that closed that'd been open 30 years, how it was appalling.
Yet no one talked about the fact that these 30 year old businesses were relics whose entire trade relied on elderly customers who had been able to park directly outside the same tea shop they'd frequented so long. Once they couldn't any more, they just stayed home. Decades of failing to broaden their customer base caught up with them because the roadworks took so long many customers genuinely died, or the shops lost such a large percentage of trade that they closed, or the shopkeepers were so personally offended that they retired early as martyrs.
Right now we've got fish and chip shops that trade literally on nostalgia because their food is shite but coaches come here full of old people who remember coming to this seaside as kids in the 70s, charging £12 a supper while kicking up bloody murder whenever anyone suggests bringing in a McDonald's or anything for younger people or parents. They're somehow the victims as well as better than anyone else because they refuse to modernise.
Kind of. It really depends on price.
For 2 pairs of glasses my local optician wanted £500, I can't afford that, so I went to a green signed spec 'saving' shop and spent half that for 2 pairs.
On the other hand there's a Tardis like hardware shop near me that as well as stocking literally kitchen sinks also will give great advice. It looks like it should be expensive but it's not, been going many years so probably repeat custom keeps it going.
Nearby a greengrocer and butchers has closed in the last 10 years, but another butchers is doing well.
My feeling is if I can afford it then yes I'll go local as it's convenient.
I reckon you'd make a very good councillor. Get yourself onto the local council. Be the person to make the change. Don't expect others to make the change.
I've attempted to, but there's not a lot of genuinely decent local shops. It's all either charity shops, vape shops, clothes shops that are full of those no-brand drop shipped shite that's more expensive than what you can get in Matalan down the road, or newsagents.
I did try to buy some blinds recently and thought I'd go for a local company that I had used before. I got notified that they'd gone into liquidation after approximately 4 weeks of constantly chasing them for an update to my order. Of course, when I went and did a bit of research, the two guys who ran the company have got priors. They had a blind company before that went under in April 2020 after a few years of operation. Wouldn't you believe that the company I used was magically incorporated in April 2020 and moved into exactly the same premises?
I don't feel like I should have to do some fucking due diligence on every local company I might want to use - I spent enough time digging around on Companies House for work - but the one time I decided not to, I get burned by it.
Even when we go into town I find there’s very little we would ever frequent beyond food, charity and Homebase type shops in town. The garden centres and farm shops are their own trips which were a lot more likely to make as part of a day out.
The local clothes shops are neither in our styles or budgets, there’s a few art galleries we could never afford to shop in and then some bougie furniture shops. Then the usual tattoo artists, vape stores, phone shops and savers type places.
Allowing more high street places to be housing/flats makes far more sense, but is always argued against. So we just have loads of empty shops and flats above. Such a waste.
Nope. My loyalty is to my wallet and convenience.
If Asda have what I want and it's cheaper. Easier to park. And easier to pay with card. Perfect.
If the shop around the corner is arsey. Doesn't have what I need and wants me to pay only in cash. No thanks
Small businesses can be the best pubs, take aways, cafes etc But can be a mixed bag in terms of how good an employer they are.
Bigger companies where there is trade union recognition can be more wary of breaching employees rights than some small businesses.
I'd rather support businesses where the staff have unionised over businesses that union bust, that would be my criteria over the size of the company or how local it is.
We have a local shop that sells fruit, veg and cleaning supplies. Excellent produce and great people who run the shop. The problem: they’re open 11-3.30 on weekdays, 10-4 on Saturday and closed on Sunday and Monday. They then complain that the locals don’t shop there enough. When they were asked to extend their opening times they said that they’re running this business while raising their kids and we need to get used to shopping in these times. They have a few solid customers but most of us can’t shop there unless it’s a Saturday.
I also wonder how much of the money actually stays local, they all have costs in different areas and big shops still employ staff. Probably a but more money stays local as compared with a chain, but i bets its less than its made to feel.
I guess, does depend on your budget though and how reasonable it is, quite like our local cake shop and they charge good prices so I'll use them over one of the big shops, but if the cakes were double the price I wouldn't
I support one local business, local small craft brewery, excellent guys with interesting beer.
Would spend far more with them too but I don't drink much these days, at most a couple of beers a week
Just before the pandemic I moved my business to a small unit in a shared space.
There was another unit occupied by 2 women selling raw dog treats both working part time.
Less than a year later I moved out of thay unit partly because they were desperate for more space. They had already taken over any units or other space in the building they were so desperate for space.
In that time they had both gone to full time and taken on lots of staff. A normal day would be atleast 5 staff and weekends they'd have their kids in on top to help them too.
In that same time many other businesses failed. Lots of them blamed the same pandemic that saw my neighbours business literally explode.
I don't think the pandemic had.much to do with it. I think these two women were driven and motivated, saw opportunities and took them. They found solutions where as the people in the shops you've been talking to are happy to only see problems. Businesses need to evolve and change as the world does, or stay the same and die. If anything the pandemic just speeded it up for a few people.
We have similar issues in my town. What I want to tell these entitled shop owners is that if they're not selling what people want to buy, they are not owed a living just by opening a shop in a small town. Locals don't have to support a shop selling nothing they want or need or can afford. Most high streets seem to be charity shops, nail bars, takeaways and coffee shops these days, because people's shopping habits have changed. High streets all over the country are going more towards service based shops than retail because they recognise the need to adapt with the times. If I can get a book in the local bookshop for the same price or a pound or two more than I can on Amazon, for example, then yes, I would of course buy it from the book shop. But spending £25 on an artisan something or other that I neither need nor want from a local craft shop is not going to happen, any day of the week.
I live in a market town and I don't really shop locally. The actual market is on Mondays when I'm not here. I buy my fags and beer from the local off licence - does that count? Apart from that, the remaining shops are charity shops, a jewellers, post office and a chippy (which is rubbish). EVERYTHING else is either a wine bar, cafe, pub or restaurant.
I feel the shop local narrative is long gone. Why would I? I did get the importance of it a while ago but that ship has sailed and we need to adapt.
Yes, often I do.
But not where the customer service is appalling or the street lighting is so unreliable that drug dealing youths feel obligated to warm single women and anyone with children to avoid the route because so many thuggish perverts frequent the vicinity.
With an 11k population how many people would actually need to drive to the shops and pay for parking, surely walking wouldn’t be an issue?
For clothes shopping I prefer to travel to a city since the shops are bigger and can hold a wider range. I do use our local businesses but there’s not much to keep you occupied for longer than an hour, if I was more organised I’d like to use the butchers and bakers but I tend to just go to the supermarkets.
I don’t. As someone who runs a local business as well it’s just a farce in my view. There’s a few different versions of it during the year, one I believe focuses upon spending £10 in each business by each local business which they give a figure for of how much income that will give the local economy.
That’s fine, but a) not every business has something others need b) usually the reason you aren’t dealing with them already let’s face it is cost for 99% of companies. We deal with some because we have a great relationship and that’s worth the cost. However if someone dramatically cut that cost well we would consider that. As anyone would
Also the local co op, local Lidl, Tesco bring in so much more in customers, the economy and jobs (and therefore more local spend) than almost any of the smaller independents. I get the idea but still…
And the other issue is most little local stores are specialised in something which again makes it even harder for people to go and spend in them unless they absolutely need something in that genre.
No I don't, it isn't my job to propr up small businesses. They should either adapt or lose the business imo. Usually get too many blockers with small businesses like no card machine or no price labels and stuff. Just shite.
If anyone remembers mary Portas and her series "mary queen of shops" they had an episode on liskeard, Cornwall. my home town. Mary portas was at the time a govement appointed advsier on high street britain after all. The whole episode decided to frame the whole town as helpless country folk who desperately needed Mary's help.
Advice given included selling home made pasties to morrisons, and rebounding the whole town as "lip smacking liskeard" she opened up a town shop that died less then a year later. Overall she didnt do fuck all.
Her primary gripe though and why I post here, she thought the high prices of the local parking which is currently £1.10 for 2hrs in 2024 (i think it was something like 70p on 2013) was the cause of high Street decline. Which was just bull. The green grocer, butchers and local pasty shops are all still open and thriving in liskeard but mosy of the clothes shops, goods shops etc are closed. we just choose to collectively ignore globalism, urbanisation? Online shopping etc that means we will just not pay the higher prices for more expensive local goods unless its cooked up in front of us
I do, but I also feel I can only do so if the shops offer what it is I’m looking for. And for my local town centre I just can’t get what I need. I use the Tesco and I do look in the charity shops, but there isn’t much variety at all.
My town main street is as follows.
on the left bookies, takeaway, semichem, bookies, opticians, chemist, chipshop.
On the right nail bar, Turkish barbers, pub, hairdressers, takeaway, co-op, takeaway, hairdresser
I don't shop local. There is nothing to shop in.
I've seen LOADS of hairdressers/barbers that HAVE to be money laundering fronts.
There's one that has a womens hairdressers two doors down from a "turkish barber" and every 3-4 weeks they swap places.
I mean literally swap. The signs get changed over, the contents of the stores get moved across.
Then 3-4 weeks later they flip back again! There HAS to be some sort of scam involved somewhere
I used to work in a small local shop where we just couldn’t buy wholesale what the local pound shops were selling for. It would’ve been cheaper to buy off their shelves. Unfortunately but inevitably, it closed. Buy local is a good concept, but when it’s much cheaper, and for more convenient to buy online or at larger supermarket or pound shop, it won’t happen. Especially in a cost of living crisis.
90p for parking isn't the issue, in the city I live in a 2 hour parking is £7+ you cant find cheaper. what is making people turn away from the local shops is the expensive prices for the food and everything else people buy especially when compared to the supermarkets, like you said in your local shop a cheese is sold for £20 and those days where most of the country deals with the cost of living people don't have that £20 for cheese they rather go and get it cheaper from a supermarket, yes the quality might be worse but its cheaper. for example, someone who works full-time brings home lets say around £2k per month and in that wage, you need to fit the entire month's bills from rent to grocery with rent prices going up like crazy would you be getting that £20 cheese or would you just say ''screw the quality lets go aldi, tesco, asda to try and save even £10''
I think if places don't have an online shop/delivery option these days, they're screwing themselves.
We've noticed a lot of shops closing down. But many of these places you can shop for the same things online and have it the next day for cheaper.
Also why would you want to go through the hassle of heading out to a physical shop, and be stuck with the limited choice there. And then if there's an issue you have to go all the way back to change or refund it. With the Internet you literally have the whole world to buy from, with every available option and likely more competitive pricing. As well as usually next day delivery and free returns that can be picked up from your home. It's so much less hassle buying online.
Shops are good for seeing what a item is like in person, but many times I'll be comparing the price online, see it's cheaper, and then buy it there...
I recently went back to Guildford recently, and it's mostly restaurants now. So many shops have closed from before. That you at least have more of a reason to go to.
A physical shop is fine in some cases, but with the Internet you just have so much more choice.
Things that can help ( near me at least)
Clear opening times - online & big signs, ideally 1 or 2 late nights ( sometimes just Oct- xmas )
Online presence- lots of photos with prices even if they can't offer online shopping
Local produce clearly labelled - fruit/veg or artists in gift shop
Linking with other independents - facebook gift shop shares post from cafe nearby etc
sometimes it’s the fact you need to pay for parking that psychologically puts you off stopping. if i know i can pull up no problem im more inclined to stop. if i even have to think about parking im fairly likely to put it off
I shop local at independent shops whenever I can. I buy at our thrice weekly market, the local butcher (there are two), the independent chemist instead of the chain one, as well as the small B&M.
No I don't as they are generally more expensive unless I'm desperate. I don't give a fuck about all that "support your local" bullshit. I go to whoever is cheapest.
I can’t afford the supplement to buy from butchers, bakers etc.
Yes the food is nicer. Yes it helps the community. However I can’t afford more than I pay at Lidl. And that’s all there is to it.
Not to mention MOST of my local shops are takeaways, and shops aimed at cultures I am not part of.
99% of the time they offer a shit service and aren't open when the majority of people can shop.
I get that it's hard to compete with supermarkets and online shopping, but most don't even try.
I shop local as much as I can, but its not always possible. You may be able to use local shops for a full weekly shop for example, but its much more costly and time consuming than popping to the supermarket. This isn't to say its the fault of the local shop owners, it would be impossible for them to compete, but when people don't have the money they can't spend the money.
But then its a question of what do we define as local? There's a shop near me with posters in the window preaching the importance of shopping local and supporting local business owners, something that's also all over their social media. Their business is literally buying the cheapest tat on temu and ali express and selling it at a considerable markup. Is it a local business if every single item is shipped over from China, just because the shop keeper is independent?
On the parking front, I do think it plays a role in the demise of the highest highstreet in general, not just local shops. 90p an hour isn't too bad but some places are utterly stupid and is just another barrier. I've just got back from a country with hardly any pay and display places - local shops seem much busier and there's more of them.
Price vs quality for me.
I'll happily shop local if it's a few quid extra and it means better service, better after care, and/or a better product.
But usually it means spending 2x as much for something that is marginally better *at best* and having to deal with a surly shopkeeper when something goes wrong, instead of Amazon that will refund me on the same day I post the return.
High streets need to adapt there opening and closing times if they want to survive.
When you work 9-5 you can’t go in most shops because they are also 9-5.
My local town with paid for parking, Loads of empty shops...
The small village next door free parking... And it's thriving.
Probably has more shops than the bigger town...
No.
I don’t shop. I get groceries. And occasionally I have to buy something. But we don’t do shopping for liesure.
We do go for coffee. Go the local board game shop. Go for karaoke. Go for food. Hanging out with friends.
I’d use specialised shops, the local butcher. But he closes at 17:00.
The Brits aren’t very good at retail.
I'm a fan of shop local, but I am so confused by people who are upset by a 90p parking charge. Nowhere near me has anything less than 1.20 an hour, we'd be dead pleased with 90p???
The problem is capitalism. It's a system built for a world that existed two hundred years ago. The world is very different now. We recognise that we need to reduce environmental impact and that means creating living conditions where people don't need to travel to get the things they need and this means local establishments. However, this also means that many locations simply don't have sufficient numbers to maintain a successful business under the capitalist framework. This is why we need a new system that subsidises things that we know we need.
I've said this a million times to the point I might copy and paste it next time, but here's my opinion as a small business owner who had a failed shop and now sells online.
The traditional high street is dead. It's gone. Too late. But that doesn't mean you can't shop local. In fact, I'd rebrand "shop local" to "support your local economy".
Shopping local doesn't mean - "Buy your shoes from Tracy's Shoe Shop open Mon to Tuesday 9am - 10am". Supporting your local economy means buying your shoes from ShoeEmporium online, the shoe website that employs six local people and has a director that works on the factory floor. There are plenty of small to medium businesses in this country with turnovers from a few thousand to several million that are still "local businesses".
The options aren't shitty high street shops OR trillion dollar retail behemoths (Amazon). There are "local" options in the middle.
Oh and parking absolutely kills high streets. It creates a barrier to entry that the retail parks don't have, and 90p is actually not too bad. If you want a couple of hours and you go to some larger towns or small cities you could easily be looking at several pounds.
If you mean “go to the Esso garage at the end of the road for stuff I have run out of and sweets/comics for the kids” then yes, I do shop local! But when it comes down to the high street, which is either charity shops/old lady boutique/overpriced wine shop/independent hardware shop that is always half empty, then it’s a no from me.
My high street won the "UKs best high Street" award in 2020 and is mostly made up of locally owned businesses.
Shopping local here is easy and I do it near daily, but then for any decent variety of food or products I have to go online or to cities nearby.
The stupid opening hours many have has made it hard to go, which is so frustrating because there is a cool comic kinda shop by me but they are never open when I can go there.
One of the best restaurants in this whole valley have no advertising which makes no business sense - it's attached to a very popular farm shop.
Additionally the variety of choice is dreary. In fact, I even had to Google review a shop that was literally next to my bus stop - literally their entire window was grave decorations and "in memory of" and similar stuff when they are supposed to be a spirituality/tarot reading shop. It upset me as I had to look at objects everyday that reminded me of my losses.
In fairness to them, they have changed it after my review thank goodness, the window is all Buddha and Insence now.
I dont like how many local shops dodge taxes and lose SO MUCH custom by not having card payment facilities.
One of the most popular cafes in my valley does not accept card payment, so many people go in hoping for some toast and a coffee - they don't want to have to walk a mile and get more money than they wanted to spend. Unless you are desperate for a coffee, who is going to withdraw £10+ just to spend 2.50 on a coffee with the added hassle of having to go to the atm?
People go elsewhere.
I would if any of them were ever open when I want to shop
I had a local shop I wanted to support, closed at 5 pm mid-week and closed on Sunday. As an office worker(like many people) I could not go, so I ended up ordering online....
As a motorist, if I go shopping in a town centre, parking charges are like a tax to be added to my purchase. Often parking costs as much as or more than delivery from an online store - in which case, I may as well buy online. Of course, that does put money in the pockets of Amazon and their ilk, instead of local businesses.
> There's no shoe shops, no clothes shops, nothing
In many towns, there used to many such shops but the locals ones were taken over or driven out of business by national chains in the 1960s - 1970s. Now, the national chains have mostly moved to out-of-town retail parks (which all have free parking).
In addition to parking costs, town centre business rates are a significant issue for large retailers. Charities don't pay business rates and will typically take a five year lease on a commercial unit for zero rent - but the property owner doesn't have to pay business rates.
Realistically, times have changed and many people do much of their shopping online. Town centres will probably have to be repurposed, probably for much needed housing. I think a change of use from any commercial use to residential use should be a permitted development right.
Parking does make a difference. I could drive to the high street and go to an independent care shop but then I have to piss around getting money, getting change and pay £1-3 to spend five minutes buying a card. Or I can use the apps if they feel like working, I actually service (limited where I live) and fck about with that just to go in a shop for two minutes. Some only have online parking so if my phone is dead or I have no service, I cannot park.
I end up driving to the shopping centre with unlimited parking and going into cars factory.
I try to shop local as much as possible but with the rising costs it’s hard to, especially with meat prices. I still will always get my fruit and veg from the market in my town (it’s a really good one so there’s always good availability and I find produce lasts longer) but due to meat prices I can’t justify buying meat from the market anymore. Its frustrating because the market is a big part of my town but when you can’t afford the prices you have to swap to shopping at supermarkets. Our market closes at 4 on weekdays and doesn’t open on Sundays so it’s also the availability when you work 8:30- 5:30 so the market opens after you start work and closes before you’re finished.
The niche shops are the best ones. They specifically aim to sell an item they KNOW doesn't sell very often but then complain they don't make many sales. Sorry Susan, but not everyone needs wind chimes every week.
I'd support it if there was anything decent to support, it's all cafes, restaurants gift shops or women's clothes. There's just nothing local for me to buy and I'm not gonna waste my money on crap I don't want just because Sharon round the corner sold it to me
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Some shops really don't seem to realise they need to appeal to potential customers. Restaurants with no menu in the window, or with no prices, for example. Or that are only open at inconvenient times, like a card shop near me that was between 3 primary schools and the station, so loads of parents walking past at 9am. Didn't open until 10, shut before 5.30, so no commuters walking straight past could ever use it. Local cheese shop opened, and struggled because Covid kicked off again and spouse got ill and such. But they quicky realised people wanted to pop in after getting off the train from work, and grab something for dinner. So they have a £20 'cant be arsed to cook' deal, cheese, bread, some olives or something, and a bottle of wine, and they stay open until 8pm on Wednesdays to Fridays, not opening on Monday until 3pm. Immediately doubled their trade. And have a sandwich of the day for people to buy to take to work, and then got a coffee machine. They're thriving, which is lovely.
The ‘can’t be arsed’ factor is so real. Used to live where there was a great Italian between the house and the station but wasn’t busy midweek. Turns out once people get home that’s it. They can’t be arsed to go out. Suddenly an ‘early dinner’ menu from 5-7 ish and the place was rammed.
I just went out for fish and chips because I couldnt be arsed lol
>Restaurants with no menu in the window, or with no prices, for example. This is my number one peeve. Either that or a deli/sandwich place with 30+ menu items hand written on a chalk board above the counter but God forbid you spend a minute trying to read it without being harassed. You should have known what you wanted before you came in! Somehow.
There's a little restaurant that I walk past all the time that always smells great and the menu looks great from the outside. But I've never been in because they don't put their prices on the outside menu, so I'm worried that I'll get sat and then realise that the food is completely out of my budget.
See also: trendy cafes that don't actually explain what their kitschy menu items are beyond listing abbreviated ingredients. 17 avo, smash, organic yogurt, nduja Is it a sandwich? A salad? A soup? Served on a bed of drywall screws? Nothing makes me go full boomer than the millenial urge to be inscrutable.
There used to be a tiny, really basic sandwich shop near me that was always packed out the door, and it was cheap and you could see them make the sandwich and add what you wanted to it!! I miss those places! And I miss the chicken mayo with sweetcorn and cucumber that I would get every Saturday on my lunch break!!
It really annoys me that the majority of shops in the UK are open 9am-5pm when those are the exact hours when most of us are working
Even worse are the 10-4 ones. Oh and closed 1-2 for lunch. Who the fuck can use that
I once knew someone who lived in a small village. The butcher, the cheesemonger, etc all botched at council meetings about people shopping at Morrisons instead of at their shops. Want to know what they absolutely refused to do? Be open at times people could shop. They would rather blame the customer for wanting cheap and convenient food (and why is that wrong!) than actually listen and rethink their business model.
Absolutely this. My parents like in a small town. There's a couple of successful businesses (pub, butchers, nice shoe shop) that have reasonable displays of their offerings, opening times, reasonable items that local people would want. There's also a string of batshit businesses (purse shop, crystal shop, shite cafe that's closed most of the time) that cannot possibly get enough custom in, are visually forbidding or ambiguous and functionally inaccessible. I also think activities, not retail are the way to go. Soft play, zumba, gyms are all the rage and need a physical premises. Yet people seem determined to open up retail shops selling tat at thrice the price of Amazon.
Sounds like an area of Bristol I lived, honestly
Another thing that I find inconvenient about shopping local is the inconsistent hours. What do you mean that you're a cafe and your hours look like this? Monday - CLOSED Tuesday- 12pm to 2pm Wednesday- 10am to 11:30am Thursday - CLOSED Friday - 9am to 11:30am Saturday - 10:30am to 4:30pm Sunday - CLOSED And then they complain about not getting the footfall
This is a real problem - far too many people think running your own business is easy street. Sell up the place in London to live mortgage free out in the boonies then get angry that the locals simply can't appreciate the brilliance of your charming cafe with exposed brickwork and those funny lampshades that serves flat whites and shit. Far too many of those kind of businesses out there and thry nearly always fail.
I'm intrigued by these flat white dispensing lampshades. Truly a wonder of modern tech!
It's a hell of a shock when you first use one.
> out in the boonies That feels rather American and it's upsetting me. Could you Anglify it a bit please?
'Arse-end of nowhere'?
Apologies - will "out in the sticks" do?
Not only do independents tend to have inconsistent or baffling opening times, they also will often just decide to close early or not open at all. I hate having to check social media before I set off just to see if they've posted that they're closed. I live in an area with lots of small businesses and struggle to actually get in and support them.
There's a French bakery/café in my town, run by a genuine French couple. Now we love boulangeries so *would* go there lots, but they dont open until 10am, and close at random times. I mean what bakery DOESN'T open until after breakfast??! After a couple of visits to find it closed we stopped bothering.
This is my absolute pet peeve about Glasgow southside cafes. Only 3 of the 30 or so cafes near to me are open before 9am and only one before 8am so it gets all my business.
Considering most boulangeries are open at the crack of dawn in France you’d think they would be a bit more on the ball
There's a fishmonger that my partner's dad inexplicably shares posts from every day (not sure why, he barely eats fish), and they have no set opening hours whatsoever. They just post at whatever time saying "morning, we are now open until (usually 2-3 hours later)". I found it so infuriating and I scrolled back on their page a bit to see if there was some kind of pattern to when they opened and couldn't find one. Just different opening times every day, usually different from whatever time they opened at on that day last week or the week before. So are people meant to just sit and wait for this post? Or what? And when it's such a short window of time, are you meant to drop everything to hoof it to them?
Our local shop is like that. I've stopped visiting because they're so unreliable. They say they open 8am-8pm every day, but if its the owners working and not the staff, its anyone guess when they'll open or close. Right pain on a Sunday morning at 8.30 when you're trying to buy some food for work and the supermarkets are all closed. Out local fish and chip shop is also closed every Sunday and every other Saturday which just seems a bit silly to me.
Weeks before our daughters birthday, we'd figure we'd give our local toyshop a go, and it was a Saturday, inlaws looking after our daughter. Walk into town & it's closed. It's open 10am-2pm Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri, closed Wed/Sat/Sun lol
There's a chippy near me that had weird hours like this, you were never sure if it was open for lunch or dinner They closed down from lack of trade Someone took over, made it a fashionable chippy with fancy chicken goujons and garden peas with your fish etc Same weird opening hours
A chippy opened near me last year, that was a fusion of fish n chips and Italian cuisine. It's closed now
This, if I want fancy food takeaway I'll go to a fancy cafe or something If I want a greasy fish supper it's the chippy
A chippy opened near my previous home a couple of years. Their hours were from 5pm till midnight. And they're near a pub. Rammed to the brim every day!
A couple of our local supermarkets now have key cutting machines, which set off a big debate on the local Facebook group when the owner of the local key shop and his mates complained about what this would do to his business. He didn't appreciate it when people pointed out that they could now actually get keys cut, because he only seemed to open his shop when he felt like it...
If parking is 90p I don't think that's what's keeping people away. I don't tend to shop local because there's no real local shops. The corner shop is 50% out of date stuff and 100% over priced. I'll visit the local farm shop maybe once a month because they have great sausages but that's about it. I work during the day and go shopping in the evening, the local butcher shop and fruit and veg shops aren't open.
I think the UK does badly with parking. Something I once saw in Portugal, was a large car park near a beach (with other nearby businesses) setting their prices as something like: €0 = 30m €1 = 60m ... €5 = 4 hrs €15 = all day Which makes more sense to me, because I'd be put off paying to park if I just wanted some groceries, or a sandwich but happy to pay a nominal fee to stop and get lunch or whatever and if your going to the beach or parking all day then pay more for occupying that space for an extended period. Locally we have free street parking ranging from 30m to 2 hours though there's not enough of it. Luckily there's a good range of shops though, so that helps footfall.
Some of the car parks at larger stores/malls had cover over the parking, which had solar panels on the roofs. Kept the cars cooler during the day (or drier when it’s raining), free electricity… why don’t we have _anything_ like that here? Also, they know how to drive over there. I don’t think I saw a single lane hogger for two weeks.
Cycle Parking also. I'm not expecting shops to put racks in themselves but if the councils put a few bike racks outside the shops they say are struggling I'd go more often.
Well, back in my home country every decent shop has at least a couple of simple bike racks put by the shop owners. They cost a hundred quid or so (small ones), there's absolutely no reason not to install them.
My problem is too much parking and too many cars in the high Street. It's no fun going to the High Street which clogged with cars. Get rid of parking and pedestrianise it during the day
Yeah I don’t really have many local shops. Unfortunately the local shops that are about charge more for the essentials I want. I don’t earn enough money or have the time to have the luxury of shopping locally rather than a large supermarket.
I've seen research before that found that local business owners tend to overestimate the impact of parking charges on their business. It's one of those things people say, but the evidence for it is pretty weak. As for shopping local, I always find it a meaningless phrase tbh. What it tends to actually mean is 'shop at expensive and niche independently owned business'. And sure, I occasionally pop into some of the lovely independent shops on my high street. But with the prices they charge and the limited range they carry, I'm never going do all my shopping there. Sure, it would be nice to always support the local independent butcher or cheesemonger or deli. But the prices they charge mean I just can't do all my food shopping there, even putting aside the inconvenience.
It's probably because it's easier to blame an outside factor rather than something you can directly control (like opening hours, offering, your manner).
My local area has got Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. My local corner shop is convinced it's ruining trade. The place is always busy. Has everything you need in an emergency and is 8 minutes walk from any other corner shop. No one should ever drive to it. Seems like bullshit complaints to me
If people are going to go to the effort of driving, they'll drive to the out of town supermarket. They won't get in, drive 30 seconds, and then drive halfway back home again to find a parking spot to go to the corner shop that doesn't have as wide a variety.
Most of the local businesses round my area provide a worse service, at inconvenient times and cost more. I'll give them a go, but if they're not going to work for me, why should I continue to patronise them? To be honest when the only thing I see about a business is them constantly whinging about the council, or demanding compensation for the disruption from roadworks they also demanded, I make a mental note never to visit them again.
I agree with the worse service. We tried to use a clothing store on our local market to buy cotton Pjs for my nan. They didn't have the size/colour she wanted in stock but said they could order if for us, would take 2 weeks. 2 weeks later we go back, they don't have them yet try next week. Okay, try again, oh it will be another 2 weeks because there is a supplier issue. Try 2 weeks later, the lady running it is not there she has gone to get a tattoo. Baring in mind the market is only open 3 days a week she could have gotten a tattoo another time. Dude covering the store has no idea where any orders are. Go back a week later and the order is there, yaaay, only not, its the wrong colour and size ordered. Gave up in the end and ordered the exact colour and size she wanted online, next day delivery. I've seen the lady moan on local FB groups about people not supporting local. I've also seen the fruit and veg store holders buying stock in the local Sainsburys then selling it at a large mark up.
The cafe across the road from my house recently closed. We popped in a couple of times a day because convenience & getting away from the desk but every time we went in the owner ranted about a lack of customers or the council or something & I ended up dreading going there as I didn’t want to be cornered & ranted at every time I wanted a coffee. In the end we just got a nice coffee machine & stopped going. Shame it closed but actively putting customers off isn’t a great business strategy
We've gone to a couple of local cafes for lunch on a Saturday (only option when you work full time). Nothing much left on the menu as they close Sunday and Monday so are trying to use up the fresh food. Coffee and a jam sandwich then.
I typically work 08:30 to 17:00. All the local shops open 9am to 5pm...parking doesn't come into it (even with the 1 hour free we get). Even if most people were to want to nip into our town the poor traffic situation means they cannot guarantee keeping it within a normal lunch hour, so many don't bother. The traffic backup is normally caused by vehicles unloading in prohibited areas due to a lack of enforcement of unloading restrictions by all the bodies (councils and police who just point the finger at each other).
I try to 'shop local' when I can, but when there's a pack of ham I could get at asda for like £1.50, and that same pack of ham is in a local shop (for local people) costs £5.00, I'm gonna have to choose asda. I can't afford to always shop local, as much as I would like to. The premium cost for all locally made items really turns me away from shopping local. I wish I COULD shop local more often.
This is my thinking. Local, independent shops tend to be artisanal so the price is much much higher. I'm not currently in a position to be able to drop £10 on a block of cheese that is going just going to be grated into a Macaroni Cheese, so it tends to be occasional - Christmas, birthdays etc.
Yeah, I'll get the occasional treat out of a local shop if I have the money or it's coming up to a national holiday. My last local purchase was in December 2023 and it was a 200g jar of homemade quince jelly, bought from a friend's market stall for £6.00. It's tucked away in a cupboard and only taken out for VERY special occasions.
I didn't want to get into an age thing but it's difficult when on this topic, but our town's main focus seems to be towards old age tourists that have cash to splash. Shop owners are consistently against the pedestrianization of a car park bang in the middle of town, because it means customers will have to park a whole minute away, instead of on the doorstep of their shops.
That's why those sort of businesses always suffer during economic downturns. It has such an awful knock on effect.
It’s easy to say you’d shop local if it was available i.e you had a butchers, bakery, grocers etc. However, even if you put the cost aside, it is massively inconvenient in comparison to the one stop shop. I still think small businesses have a place but they’re never gonna be the mainstream choice, so the USP has to be around the quality of their products.
The locals here all blamed the parking charges for why they don't go to town, it was only 50p a day. The council has since put a free, 4 hour carpark in, now people moan it's actually the 'new' one way system that puts them off. The one way has been here for as long as I've lived here, and most people I know here don't remember it being two-way. To me it just feels like an excuse, because they want to support the local town as long as it has no impact on them.
There's talks of the council providing free parking & I upset the locals by saying "I wonder what shops will use for as an excuse now" and funnily enough, people are starting to complain about trying to pedestrianize a 10-spot car park in town lol
Ultimately, 90% of the shops in town are rubbish and overpriced but nobody wants to admit it because they're clinging to the memory of it being a successful market town in the 80s. When the local butchers closed down, I saw so many people say how much they used to love going out the butchers in the 60s-90s and that it was a travesty it's closing, but it's only closing because those same people stopped going there. At least I had my excuse, I'm vegetarian.
Yep! By that logic make bus free too If 50p-£2 parking puts folk off then blame customers. My city is free on a sunday yet dead except cafes/bars/restaurants
No I don't. It's local shop owners and old gammon who push this nonsense around here. If they want me to shop local they should be cheaper.
To some extent but business rates and rents do favour big supermarkets and the big shops do also bully local councils for unfair advantages. They also spend a fair bit lobbying government for legislative benefits. In general I agree with you but I think on a fair playing field local shops would be more competitive even without the economies of scale and buying power of the big supermarkets.
I'm aware of that, but the level playing field isn't my concern I'm not a player.
But you might get even better prices in a fair competition. For example my local farm can't supply my local shop because the majority of their business is with a supermarket who won't work with them without an exclusive arrangement. So in terms of costs the local shop could be cheaper.
They should let me know when they get cheaper and I'll go there.
Then if you can't beat them on price beat them on quality, or service. Plenty of people will pay extra if there's a perceived benefit to doing so, simple fact is most independent businesses just aren't good businesses and frankly it's not surprising they struggle.
To an extent yeah I support it. But locally the shops are mostly barbers, vape shops, phone repair shops and then stuff like Greg's I usually park in the supermarket and walk in as well, so parking charges isn't an issue in going into town I do go get my lunch most days from the local deli. It's over the road and better than getting the pre-made sandwiches from co op
Shop owners putting their prices up ridiculous amounts and then complaining they don't get customers is ridiculous to me. No one is gonna spend £20 on cheese everyday
I WANT to BUT as said on here… Many close sunday to wednesday, many are still cash only and share cash is king twaddle on social media, many only sell niche whimsy things as opposed to things i want/need Our town has a big rivalry between new local retail and non retail. The footfall here is cafes, bars etc. not shops selling fancy notebooks, quirky cards/pens etc
I work 10am to 5pm every weekday. I find it's a pain to get the odd time off to book dentists and doctors appointments, let alone going to shops that seem to only want to be open in the usual business hours. Only the larger shopping centers seem to be open after 5:30 and a bigger reason I go to them rather than anywhere else.
I'm happy to shop local, but the local shops have to make it easy for me to do it. Every year we get the "use it or lose it" sob story from the local market traders association. Every year it's pointed out that it's hard to "use it" when "it" is only available between 10am and 3pm on Thursday. But they won't have it that's the problem, and we all should feel guilty for using Amazon and Tesco. I live in a commuter town. Most of the shops only open after most of the commuter trains have gone, and most close before those afternoon commuter services arrive. I really don't understand how these shops expect people to use them.
Yeah I remember a local coffee shop being like oh no we have to close but it was also like you guys barely advertised and no one really knew about you They were also a fairly boogie place as well so even more of a limited market
Nope. I look for good service/product/price and for convenience.
Local shops haven't been competitive or viable for years upon years upon years upon years. Supermarkets and online shopping are far cheaper and more convenient all around than a scattering of local/village/high street shops. As a consumer my role is finding a balance between the best quality for the lowest price in the most convenient way for me. If a local shop can't provide, I'm not shopping there. If the store closes because of lack of custom, it is what it is. The high street should have been left to die with dignity 2 decades ago.
The big truth that shop owners don’t want to admit is that a fair number of people hate shopping. I hate shopping. In a world where I could a) go out and do something I hate or b) have it brought to me for free or next to nothing I’m obviously going to pick B. I don’t want to lug shopping around from shop to shop. I don’t want to pay for parking. I don’t want to mingle with others or run the gauntlet of charity bell ends bothering me as I wander round. Fill my local high street with as many shops as you want, but I’m not going to them. I have zero need to go and use it.
Yeah there's a Italian deli, a Spanish deli and an art supply shop near me that I go to regularly. Not so much for other stuff. Clothes for example, there simply aren't any places that sell the kind of stuff I want.
The town nearest us sounds very similar to what you describe. Lots of local businesses going under and each one of them blaming the parking charges. None of them ever consider that the issue may be their higher prices, or the fact they are only open during the hours most people are at work. And this is why I say let the high street die, if it is not willing to make changes it has control over and instead just blame outside factors then it deserves to go the way of the dodo.
Parking wasn't a consideration for me before I had kids, but now it absolutely is for anywhere that's not walking distance from my house (and I draw a wide radius, happy to walk up to an hour with the pram). And according to my husband who works on marketing/advertisement, I'm a high value consumer for small local businesses as a middle class mother with high disposable income and a lot of time on my hands! I'm definitely the type to be buying random stuff from the gift shop and £20 cheese. I can afford a small parking charge but I still go out of my way to avoid it if there's alternatives and I'm much more willing to go somewhere if there's free parking. Because whilst it's only 90p an hour here and there, I'm out every day at different shops and cafes, and that'll quickly add up to maybe £20+ a week! Other people who are also likely to be high value customers are older people with time like the near retired and OAPs (who are probably your customers for all those antique shops!). So I think whilst parking isn't an issue for some, I suspect it disproportionately affects the most valuable consumer base for the businesses you've cited. Young people who can walk or get public transport, working age people who are at work during those shop's opening hours, they are not the high spenders.
If you grudge a 90p parking charge so would rather buy meat from a supermarket than a butcher, you're not their target clientele regardless of what your husband says about you being 'a high value consumer'. You might have high disposable income but taste also factors into these things. I and many others would pay for parking to buy cheese from a local cheese shop or meat from a butcher because its better than what I get at the supermarket and the price difference isn't huge. If you can't see the value in that then you're not a target customer. You said working age people are not the high spenders. What even is 'working age people'? People who have jobs can have high disposable income too and its not just stay at home Mums who have money to spend. Such a weird take.
times change, people work more hours these days and don't have time or inclination to go to the shops, especially when you get everything delivered for much cheaper. I used to like to go to shops to look at and feel the quality of the products, but half the time they don't hold any stock and you have to order online anyway. Towns should move on from being "shopping centric" and try to be more social centred.
I want such business owners to remain encouraged to start these businesses but at the same time I'm not going to go out of my way to use one of them just because they're small/local. I used to hate that sign people would always share, something like "When you use a large business you're funding a new car and an expensive holiday. When you support a small business you're helping little Susie get new shoes for the ballet" or some shit. As if the people serving you in Tesco and McDonalds are driving home in a Tesla to sort their next trip to the Bahamas.
>they are absolutely adamant that it's parking charges that are killing their business and nothing else This, I believe, is what the youngsters call "cope". We get the same complaints where I live (parking £0.50 an hour, tops out at £1 - you can literally park all day for a quid and there's 2 *free* car parks a very short walk from the town centre) but that doesn't seem to explain why the deli, food places, florists, butchers, bakery etc and even several pubs are all thriving whilst the dusty old "antiques and collectibles" place which has no online presence, sells very niche things and has opening hours which amount to "when the owner feels like it" has closed down (this actually happened in my area and the latter had a very public meltdown about lack of support for small businesses, parking charges etc, basically everything but "maybe people just don't want this stuff"). It's almost like people are happy to support local amenities if they're a) good and b) meet an actual demand in the area. So to answer your question, yes, fully happy to support local businesses but not just for the sake of it. I definitely appreciate having amenities on my doorstep and recognise you have to support them to an extent to keep it that way but far too many small business owners seem to think people are obligated to come in and spend at their shop just because.
If I had a local cheesemonger or butchers or beer/wine merchant then yes I would because I'm a middle class wanker who likes posh cheese beer and meat, but the nearest ones of all of those would be a further drive away than several supermarkets. What I do is make the occasional special trip to a farm shop, but I'm not doing my weekly shop anywhere near that. But gift/antique shops I have literally zero interest in them, I wouldn't shop locally in those as I'm not buying gift tat or antiques anyway. Those aren't really designed for the locals, they're designed for people from out of town. I don't "shop" local generally because I don't have any need for haircuts in 8 different places, I don't gamble so the plethora of betting shops is no good to me. I don't need a tattoo etc etc. I use the chippie on occasion, and maybe the afro-Caribbean store a couple of times a year for more exotic cooking ingredients but that's about it.
I would if they had what I wanted and needed regularly and were also open when i wanted to go, for example I know its not a common every day item but I need some replacement plugs for my sinks and I've been in so many different shops and they don't have them or they say they do online but when I turn up they're nowhere to be found.
My town has the same issue and traders are constantly complaining about parking despite the car parks being full and footfall basically as the same as pre-covid. The shops that get good business are a new factory type shop, robert dyas, Greggs etc. We had a lovely record shop that closed down - I bought something once or twice but not regularly but it wasn't parking fees that stopped me doing it. People are not going to into boutique shops every day, if at all.
There’s a nice record shop near me, the guy who owns it was saying how he nearly closed down when Covid first hit as he hadn’t really been profitable in a few years and he thought it was going to be the last nail in the coffin. Then someone convinced him to buy a fancy coffee machine, put a little bar in at his front doors and sell takeaway coffee to the pedestrians walking past. It paid his rent and bills all through Covid and it now brings in loads of new customers who regularly buy the music memorabilia and records while they drink their coffee
Shop local is all well and good if you're well off and retired. But me, imma order something in bed and have it waiting in my porch when I get up thanks very much 😂 Sorry dead high street but did you even try?
I'll go in a local shop that specialises in something such as a great local cheese shop, butchers and a local outdoor shop which is really knowledgeable, helpful and friendly. I don't go in local shops where they buy random stuff from Amazon, put a 50% mark up on it and spend all their time moaning on the local Facebook page that no one wants to support their dream of running a local shop.
High Street is changing or so it seems in a lot of towns. More catered towards eateries / bar's and the night-time trade as opposed to daytime more recently. Shop local is fine - if the product is just as good and a similar price, 9/10 times it is not. Can't just expect people to buy from you at any price and quality just because its a local business. Super entitled way of thinking for a lot of these local businesses.
I think it depends where you are. I live in Edinburgh and the city centre parking charges range from £5 - £8.20 per hour. That put a stop to me shopping in town. There is only one bus from where I live (still within the city) but they only run every 45 mins, and then add in shopping bags to carry = nope. Lots of shops, bars, restaurants and cafes closing.
I try to shop local, but a lot of the stuff is shite or open weird hours. I wanted to go to a yarn shop nearby, but it was only open till like 3 pm at the latest 4 days a week. The zero waste shop had hardly anything in it, and a chippy nearby is closed before 2.
I think the problem is, the town center used to be a place to go - like you say there was a *reason* to go into town. HMV, Woolworths, M&S, Game whatever.. there was a reason to go in and do things. Lots of those shops have gone bust or moved out of the town because of rents, or a lack of footfall (with COVID hammering that nail in hard). So now the places thriving in town are all casual services, like the post office.. coffee shop.. lunch places etc (but low-value). Your example of a cheese shop is an expensive (but probably lovely!) place that people generally wouldn't go into town for exclusively. The sort of place you'd go to when you was in town after picking up some bits for a party, new top.. some drinks and get some nice cheese for that. That initial reason to go into town, is kinda gone. So the niche shop suffers as a result. You're then in the position of, you want to appeal to anyone who will come - and if they're coming in just for that, parking is suddenly a concern (because before they were coming into town anyway). It's not the money that's the issue, it's a perceived inconvenience for popping into a single shop. Off-ish topic but related, I am 34 and I remember town being relatively good - you could go in and get most things you wanted. These days, I barely ever go into town or just out to get things which I think is really sad. But, the last 20+ times I've had to go out and get something.. I've come home and had to order it on Amazon, town really isn't what it was and this is a chicken and egg issue. Example, I needed a box to return a faulty hard drive. I went to 7 shops (tesco's, whsmith, post office) and I literally couldn't buy a suitable box. That was a *massive ballache* whereas I'd have just gone to Staples before. I may well understand the reasons why they went out of business, but it doesn't change the fact It's created a problem I can't fix. We're moving to a smaller village in the next month, the thing I'm most excited about is having a butchers, bakers, farm shops.. all on our doorstep which do seem to be thriving.
No, I think businesses exist to cater to their customers and if they can't do that they shouldn't exist. I remember where my parents live there used to be a number of shops which sold porcelain figurines which I imagine must be hobby shops as no one ever went in them.
That's my line of thinking too. I would just to see a scenario of one of these shop owners needing something done, like having a kitchen installed, and see if they'd go with a local fitter costing £1000, or a fitter from another city for £950, I can guarantee they'd go for the cheaper option.
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No because it’s grammatically incorrect
Fashion is my problem. I try to stop locally but the stuff i want to wear isn't necessarily what's fashionable so it's hard to get hold of. I begrudgingly resort to online shopping if i really have to. I hate online clothes shopping because I like to feel what the clothes are like before i buy them.
There are zero mens clothing in town at all. We have a Morrisons on the outskirts, that has some black work trousers, socks/underwear and about 3 t-shirts, all none in my size. My wife went to look at a clothes shop in town aimed for women, and dresses were £60-120, and tops being £30.
90p is low for parking. There is no such thing as free parking and city centres often have the best transport links.
Once they open outside of office hours, and aren't closed for 50% of most people's non-working days, I'll be more than happy to support independent shops. I'm afraid I don't have studies to link right now, but pretty much all the research suggests that anti-car measures (parking charges, pedestrianisation) have no worse than a negligible impact on footfall.
My local town charges for parking which is a bit of a walk into town. Town consists of a post office (doesn’t open until 10), a small Boots, a bakery, a small spar and co-op, and the rest are a mixture of gift shops, antique shops, hairdressers and barbers, cafes, Indian restaurants and a Chinese takeaway, pizza place and a fishing tackle shop. So not much in the way of shops.
That's pretty cheap for parking so I'd doubt its the charge itself... But if paying to park means having to use ancient coin only machines which then print a ticket then you've added a layer of faffing about to just parking.
How far away is your nearest other town and what are their parking charges? This makes a difference. I own a number of shops and closed one recently as the trade was going one town over where there was 2 hours free parking.
Nearest are cities, so significantly different in sizes, but parking for 2-3 hours is usually £3.00-4.50. However, they do pretty much accommodate to every shopping desire.
I agree with most people here. Love shopping local. But a lot of local shops in a lot of towns are predominantly useless. It's never the parking. I just need somewhere I can get a few screws and unfortunately here,that's B&Q or wilko
I do if it's worth it. I love some of the local shops. I draw the line at shops that are just rip offs because the owners don't know how to manage their money to make ends meet and put the financial burden on the customers. I work in the food/wholesale industry and I know for a fact that cooperative supermarket with it's positive ethics buys butter from the same supplier as me for £50 a case of 40, and they're trying to sell it on at £6 a stick. Get in the bin. Same with independant bars. I know you can't get the same beer prices as Spoons. Spoons has 70 year contracts with certain breweries to get their prices so low, but £6.90 for a pint of doom bar, if it doesn't come with a plate of sausage and mash, it's a waste of money.
Our town has free parking up to 2 hours and the local shops are still dying, the high street is near nonexistent nowadays. As much as I try to shop local where possible, I work mon-fri 9-5 which is a lot of the time 90% of the shops opening hours. It's easier for me to buy from small businesses online where I can have items delivered to my house or a pick up point than it is going round each little shop in my town on the off chance they have the item I need.
I dont go to shops at all ever. Why would i pay double to have to go and get something when i could have it delivered to the house for half the price?
If I’m shopping local I don’t need to drive there. I think most people would like to support local businesses though.
I live in a town centre with plenty of decent shops and a large market. I do mostly use Tesco and M&S for food, B&M and The Range for household. But I also buy a lot of fish, meat and produce at the market and other local shops. I prefer the local (non-chain) restaurants.
Near my Aunt's in South Wales the local council removed the parking metres planning on replacing them only to realised that the new ones weren't available for two months. Shop owners reported a SIGNIFICANT uptick in sales, in some instances almost doubling. It does seem to impact. I believe local councils should offer free parking for the first hour and then increase the price of subsequent hours.
Sadly there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of data in our town to be used as actual evidence. BBC recently did an article and the collective outcome was that shop owners lost between 10% to 75%, which summarises as "we've barely lost any customers" to "we've lost nearly all our customers", which is pretty terrible evidence due to how broad it is. However, it's worth noting the shop that lost 10% of it's customers is a fruit & veg shop, which is on the front of the road works, and the 75% was an antique shop, that isn't.
No, I support "shop convenient". Whatever is easiest for me is the option I go with.
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I do what I can. My barber is awesome and ridiculously helpful. He knows people have work etc so I can get an appointment anywhere from 7am - 7pm on most days. Whenever I do get my haircut I then nip to the local florist and get my wife some flowers (if they're open). My local chemist is great, even giving me some hydrocortisone cream on a tab because their card machine was down and I didn't have my wallet on me. I wouldn't expect 90p an hour parking to put people off. It's more likely the kind of shops they are. Antique shops - luxuries, gift shops - novelties, charity shops - pot luck / low end. They aren't the kind of shops that bring people into places...
I do think where I live has a really great selection of local independent groceries, fishmongers, butchers, cafes, gift shops, restaurants, wine bars etc. I do shop local when I can but it is a very pedestrian area which makes this possible. If I go to my fave coffee shop I might have a quick browse in the charity shops etc. too. Main issues I have with independent shops is inconsistent opening hours and cost compared to the supermarket (though I would happily pay a wee bit more). One zero waste shop near me I really tried to frequent but the opening hours made it really difficult.
The idea of shopping local is great, but in reality it’s expensive and inconvenient. All my local independent shops (the butcher, the greengrocer, the deli etc) all open 10-5 Monday-Friday, 10-1 Saturday. As someone that works 9-5 Monday to Friday, I could do the whole “shop local” thing on Saturday mornings, but frankly I’ve got little incentive to try and cram going to multiple shops in the fairly tight window of Saturday morning around anything else I’ve got on, and pay more for the privilege, rather than getting a click and collect order from Tesco to get everything from the same place and pick it up whenever suits me.
I try to shop locally for things. I want local businesses to thrive as it's convenient and the place looks awful when all the shops are empty and boarded up. However, I now refuse to shop anywhere that only takes cash and that's a lot of local places around here. It's 2024. I don't have time to search for a cash machine, withdraw more cash than I need and then walk around with change I'm never going to use. There's no reason except tax evasion not to take card payments now. There's also the problem of me working full-time and local shops shutting long before I finish work, if they're open that day at all. I also like a bit of predictability. I used to go to the local sandwich place but they change name and menu constantly. I don't have time to read a whole new menu every time I'm on lunch break. Most of these places don't have a website. If you're lucky they'll have a facebook page that's a year or two out of date. So yeah. I do try but my god do they make it hard.
Yes, shop local. If local doesn't have good shops, move or open your own shop. It's unsustainable to continue trucking stuff out to people who want the amenities of a city while living miles away from one.
I live in an area with loads of great shops nearby in the suburbs of Newcastle. Top quality butchers, beer shops, a decent bakery a little bit further out, but a few local shops sell their bread anyhoo. Most of these places are within walking or cycling distance and I'm more than happy to pootle about for the better quality products. The biggest problem is that these places close at 6pm and I get out of work at 5. Unfortunately, that does mean that the supermarket wins out sometimes.
parking charges are a lot to blame . When it costs more to park than to have a home delivery off the internet, then sometimes its a no brainer ! Councils seem bent on extracting as much as possible from us . ok, the parking is only a £ or 2, but the real fear of the shopper is getting a parking FINE. Before you leave home, you start the anxiety of ensruing you have the righ way to pay - card, coins ( and have you got the RIGHT amount, they HATE giving you change !), or app -have I got the right app, and does my network have a good signal there? Agree on the shops too - gambling shops, charity shops and a Greggs / Subway - what to go to town for even?
In theory it's great
Yea I try my best to shop local. I use the local DIY shop that cuts keys, etc instead of timpsons, try and buy from there instead of b&q or b&m, there’s a fish van every Saturday, I use the small locally owned pharmacy instead of boots. Sounds like we live in similar towns! I stay in the town centre though and don’t drive so, I’m the perfect customer really.
What's all this shouting? We'll have no trouble here.
No,I can't afford to, having said that I wouldn't make a dedicated trip to go shopping either.
Shop local and buy British ...local councils are the problem, too much official party policy and not enough bringing money into towns to generate jobs and prosperous environment
I can I can’t?
Is it shop local steal corporate?
I live in the middle of Manchester now, and I'm not entirely sure there *is* such a thing as a "local shop" anywhere particularly close to me.
Well they can continue blaming that and do nothing and think they're completely helpless and see how it ends If the situation is worsening and they aren't adapting or trying to change then that's a bit stupid really. If the world changes and I fail to change with it, that's on me not the world surely
My town has free parking after 15:30 and on Sundays for the council carparks which helps a little. I try to support local businesses but it's hard work.\ I wanted a new bedframe so went to the local bed shop, it would be a 4-6 week wait and they kept no stock onsite. Drove 5 mins down the road and got one from Argos.\ Similarly I wanted an electric oven rang the local appliance store as there website is crap. We don't keep stock of that size and it would be a few days at least and cost £100+ more. I went online got one delivered next day.
I have lived in a town of 16k circa 2011 so probably closer to 20k now, for 3 years. We moved from Hong Kong where we had been for 10 years. Everything was purchased local in HK as online purchases are terrible. Since being in the UK we buy off the web a lot, well my wife does. We moved 10 mins outside the town to an islolated house. Amazon packages arrive daily thanks to my wife. I am not a fan of Amazon but do buy things from there or other online stores from time to time. I like to buy certain things in town. Pop to the butcher at the weekend which always has a queue. The toy shop is a must if my son is with me. But other than that, we do a big supermarket shop 1-2 times a week. Other than that and a haircut I am struggling to think of things in town we can't get off the web.
I appreciate that local shops aren’t able to charge low supermarket-type prices for their goods as they often have higher overheads and less wholesale purchasing power. I’m not salty that they can’t compete, but as a consumer, I’m suffering from the cost of living crisis as much as the next person, and I simply have to keep costs as low as I can. Which sadly means supermarket shopping for food most of the time. Occasionally I will treat myself to something local, but it’s exactly that - a treat (because the quality is usually better as well!), not my regular shopping. These days we are used to the convenience of one-stop-shopping and actually it would be very hard to physically carry a week’s worth of groceries for the family, so schlepping around the individual shops isn’t very practical. Getting in the car and driving to the one shop where you can buy almost everything in one go saves time. I live so close to town - about half a mile - that driving into town and parking in order to shop there would be a waste of time (and money - parking is pretty expensive where I am). The car parks are barely nearer the shops than my house is! It’s a bit far to bring back 4 bags for life full of milk and tins and whatnot, and I hate getting in the car to drive half a mile, it’s so non-environmentally friendly even if it does mean you can shop local. Now most households have all adults working unless they have a disability, so there is no one to traipse into the town every day. In the past I guess it would have been a big part of your social life too; rather than being ‘stuck at home’ you would chat to a whole bunch of people in the local community, shopkeepers and friends you met on your way. And it’s good exercise. These days who has time to do that every day?
Why does your town have so many antique shops?
Apparently famous for being on antique's roadshow, so they've stayed in business
Almost exactly the same happened in my town. Council pedestrianised an area and improved pavements, loads of roadworks and of course it took longer than usual. On-street parking was unavailable during that time and shop fronts were obscured. You should have heard them wail and whine that the council decimated the local business scene - the paper ran stories about all the shops that closed that'd been open 30 years, how it was appalling. Yet no one talked about the fact that these 30 year old businesses were relics whose entire trade relied on elderly customers who had been able to park directly outside the same tea shop they'd frequented so long. Once they couldn't any more, they just stayed home. Decades of failing to broaden their customer base caught up with them because the roadworks took so long many customers genuinely died, or the shops lost such a large percentage of trade that they closed, or the shopkeepers were so personally offended that they retired early as martyrs. Right now we've got fish and chip shops that trade literally on nostalgia because their food is shite but coaches come here full of old people who remember coming to this seaside as kids in the 70s, charging £12 a supper while kicking up bloody murder whenever anyone suggests bringing in a McDonald's or anything for younger people or parents. They're somehow the victims as well as better than anyone else because they refuse to modernise.
Kind of. It really depends on price. For 2 pairs of glasses my local optician wanted £500, I can't afford that, so I went to a green signed spec 'saving' shop and spent half that for 2 pairs. On the other hand there's a Tardis like hardware shop near me that as well as stocking literally kitchen sinks also will give great advice. It looks like it should be expensive but it's not, been going many years so probably repeat custom keeps it going. Nearby a greengrocer and butchers has closed in the last 10 years, but another butchers is doing well. My feeling is if I can afford it then yes I'll go local as it's convenient.
I reckon you'd make a very good councillor. Get yourself onto the local council. Be the person to make the change. Don't expect others to make the change.
I'm lazy and expect others to make the change
I've attempted to, but there's not a lot of genuinely decent local shops. It's all either charity shops, vape shops, clothes shops that are full of those no-brand drop shipped shite that's more expensive than what you can get in Matalan down the road, or newsagents. I did try to buy some blinds recently and thought I'd go for a local company that I had used before. I got notified that they'd gone into liquidation after approximately 4 weeks of constantly chasing them for an update to my order. Of course, when I went and did a bit of research, the two guys who ran the company have got priors. They had a blind company before that went under in April 2020 after a few years of operation. Wouldn't you believe that the company I used was magically incorporated in April 2020 and moved into exactly the same premises? I don't feel like I should have to do some fucking due diligence on every local company I might want to use - I spent enough time digging around on Companies House for work - but the one time I decided not to, I get burned by it.
Even when we go into town I find there’s very little we would ever frequent beyond food, charity and Homebase type shops in town. The garden centres and farm shops are their own trips which were a lot more likely to make as part of a day out. The local clothes shops are neither in our styles or budgets, there’s a few art galleries we could never afford to shop in and then some bougie furniture shops. Then the usual tattoo artists, vape stores, phone shops and savers type places. Allowing more high street places to be housing/flats makes far more sense, but is always argued against. So we just have loads of empty shops and flats above. Such a waste.
Nope. My loyalty is to my wallet and convenience. If Asda have what I want and it's cheaper. Easier to park. And easier to pay with card. Perfect. If the shop around the corner is arsey. Doesn't have what I need and wants me to pay only in cash. No thanks
You find a local shop for local people! /s
Small businesses can be the best pubs, take aways, cafes etc But can be a mixed bag in terms of how good an employer they are. Bigger companies where there is trade union recognition can be more wary of breaching employees rights than some small businesses. I'd rather support businesses where the staff have unionised over businesses that union bust, that would be my criteria over the size of the company or how local it is.
We have a local shop that sells fruit, veg and cleaning supplies. Excellent produce and great people who run the shop. The problem: they’re open 11-3.30 on weekdays, 10-4 on Saturday and closed on Sunday and Monday. They then complain that the locals don’t shop there enough. When they were asked to extend their opening times they said that they’re running this business while raising their kids and we need to get used to shopping in these times. They have a few solid customers but most of us can’t shop there unless it’s a Saturday.
I wish our local town's parking was as cheap as 90p /hr.
Yea none of my local or nearby town shops appeal to me either, parking in one is free for 2hrs
I also wonder how much of the money actually stays local, they all have costs in different areas and big shops still employ staff. Probably a but more money stays local as compared with a chain, but i bets its less than its made to feel.
I guess, does depend on your budget though and how reasonable it is, quite like our local cake shop and they charge good prices so I'll use them over one of the big shops, but if the cakes were double the price I wouldn't
I support one local business, local small craft brewery, excellent guys with interesting beer. Would spend far more with them too but I don't drink much these days, at most a couple of beers a week
Just before the pandemic I moved my business to a small unit in a shared space. There was another unit occupied by 2 women selling raw dog treats both working part time. Less than a year later I moved out of thay unit partly because they were desperate for more space. They had already taken over any units or other space in the building they were so desperate for space. In that time they had both gone to full time and taken on lots of staff. A normal day would be atleast 5 staff and weekends they'd have their kids in on top to help them too. In that same time many other businesses failed. Lots of them blamed the same pandemic that saw my neighbours business literally explode. I don't think the pandemic had.much to do with it. I think these two women were driven and motivated, saw opportunities and took them. They found solutions where as the people in the shops you've been talking to are happy to only see problems. Businesses need to evolve and change as the world does, or stay the same and die. If anything the pandemic just speeded it up for a few people.
We have similar issues in my town. What I want to tell these entitled shop owners is that if they're not selling what people want to buy, they are not owed a living just by opening a shop in a small town. Locals don't have to support a shop selling nothing they want or need or can afford. Most high streets seem to be charity shops, nail bars, takeaways and coffee shops these days, because people's shopping habits have changed. High streets all over the country are going more towards service based shops than retail because they recognise the need to adapt with the times. If I can get a book in the local bookshop for the same price or a pound or two more than I can on Amazon, for example, then yes, I would of course buy it from the book shop. But spending £25 on an artisan something or other that I neither need nor want from a local craft shop is not going to happen, any day of the week.
I live in a market town and I don't really shop locally. The actual market is on Mondays when I'm not here. I buy my fags and beer from the local off licence - does that count? Apart from that, the remaining shops are charity shops, a jewellers, post office and a chippy (which is rubbish). EVERYTHING else is either a wine bar, cafe, pub or restaurant. I feel the shop local narrative is long gone. Why would I? I did get the importance of it a while ago but that ship has sailed and we need to adapt.
Yes, because I want the shops to be there. Because the alternative is betting shops, takeaways of 'to let' signs. Very simple concept.
Yes, often I do. But not where the customer service is appalling or the street lighting is so unreliable that drug dealing youths feel obligated to warm single women and anyone with children to avoid the route because so many thuggish perverts frequent the vicinity.
With an 11k population how many people would actually need to drive to the shops and pay for parking, surely walking wouldn’t be an issue? For clothes shopping I prefer to travel to a city since the shops are bigger and can hold a wider range. I do use our local businesses but there’s not much to keep you occupied for longer than an hour, if I was more organised I’d like to use the butchers and bakers but I tend to just go to the supermarkets.
I don’t. As someone who runs a local business as well it’s just a farce in my view. There’s a few different versions of it during the year, one I believe focuses upon spending £10 in each business by each local business which they give a figure for of how much income that will give the local economy. That’s fine, but a) not every business has something others need b) usually the reason you aren’t dealing with them already let’s face it is cost for 99% of companies. We deal with some because we have a great relationship and that’s worth the cost. However if someone dramatically cut that cost well we would consider that. As anyone would Also the local co op, local Lidl, Tesco bring in so much more in customers, the economy and jobs (and therefore more local spend) than almost any of the smaller independents. I get the idea but still… And the other issue is most little local stores are specialised in something which again makes it even harder for people to go and spend in them unless they absolutely need something in that genre.
No I don't, it isn't my job to propr up small businesses. They should either adapt or lose the business imo. Usually get too many blockers with small businesses like no card machine or no price labels and stuff. Just shite.
If anyone remembers mary Portas and her series "mary queen of shops" they had an episode on liskeard, Cornwall. my home town. Mary portas was at the time a govement appointed advsier on high street britain after all. The whole episode decided to frame the whole town as helpless country folk who desperately needed Mary's help. Advice given included selling home made pasties to morrisons, and rebounding the whole town as "lip smacking liskeard" she opened up a town shop that died less then a year later. Overall she didnt do fuck all. Her primary gripe though and why I post here, she thought the high prices of the local parking which is currently £1.10 for 2hrs in 2024 (i think it was something like 70p on 2013) was the cause of high Street decline. Which was just bull. The green grocer, butchers and local pasty shops are all still open and thriving in liskeard but mosy of the clothes shops, goods shops etc are closed. we just choose to collectively ignore globalism, urbanisation? Online shopping etc that means we will just not pay the higher prices for more expensive local goods unless its cooked up in front of us
I do, but I also feel I can only do so if the shops offer what it is I’m looking for. And for my local town centre I just can’t get what I need. I use the Tesco and I do look in the charity shops, but there isn’t much variety at all.
My town main street is as follows. on the left bookies, takeaway, semichem, bookies, opticians, chemist, chipshop. On the right nail bar, Turkish barbers, pub, hairdressers, takeaway, co-op, takeaway, hairdresser I don't shop local. There is nothing to shop in.
I've seen LOADS of hairdressers/barbers that HAVE to be money laundering fronts. There's one that has a womens hairdressers two doors down from a "turkish barber" and every 3-4 weeks they swap places. I mean literally swap. The signs get changed over, the contents of the stores get moved across. Then 3-4 weeks later they flip back again! There HAS to be some sort of scam involved somewhere
I used to work in a small local shop where we just couldn’t buy wholesale what the local pound shops were selling for. It would’ve been cheaper to buy off their shelves. Unfortunately but inevitably, it closed. Buy local is a good concept, but when it’s much cheaper, and for more convenient to buy online or at larger supermarket or pound shop, it won’t happen. Especially in a cost of living crisis.
90p for parking isn't the issue, in the city I live in a 2 hour parking is £7+ you cant find cheaper. what is making people turn away from the local shops is the expensive prices for the food and everything else people buy especially when compared to the supermarkets, like you said in your local shop a cheese is sold for £20 and those days where most of the country deals with the cost of living people don't have that £20 for cheese they rather go and get it cheaper from a supermarket, yes the quality might be worse but its cheaper. for example, someone who works full-time brings home lets say around £2k per month and in that wage, you need to fit the entire month's bills from rent to grocery with rent prices going up like crazy would you be getting that £20 cheese or would you just say ''screw the quality lets go aldi, tesco, asda to try and save even £10''
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I think if places don't have an online shop/delivery option these days, they're screwing themselves. We've noticed a lot of shops closing down. But many of these places you can shop for the same things online and have it the next day for cheaper. Also why would you want to go through the hassle of heading out to a physical shop, and be stuck with the limited choice there. And then if there's an issue you have to go all the way back to change or refund it. With the Internet you literally have the whole world to buy from, with every available option and likely more competitive pricing. As well as usually next day delivery and free returns that can be picked up from your home. It's so much less hassle buying online. Shops are good for seeing what a item is like in person, but many times I'll be comparing the price online, see it's cheaper, and then buy it there... I recently went back to Guildford recently, and it's mostly restaurants now. So many shops have closed from before. That you at least have more of a reason to go to. A physical shop is fine in some cases, but with the Internet you just have so much more choice.
Things that can help ( near me at least) Clear opening times - online & big signs, ideally 1 or 2 late nights ( sometimes just Oct- xmas ) Online presence- lots of photos with prices even if they can't offer online shopping Local produce clearly labelled - fruit/veg or artists in gift shop Linking with other independents - facebook gift shop shares post from cafe nearby etc
sometimes it’s the fact you need to pay for parking that psychologically puts you off stopping. if i know i can pull up no problem im more inclined to stop. if i even have to think about parking im fairly likely to put it off
I shop local at independent shops whenever I can. I buy at our thrice weekly market, the local butcher (there are two), the independent chemist instead of the chain one, as well as the small B&M.
No I don't as they are generally more expensive unless I'm desperate. I don't give a fuck about all that "support your local" bullshit. I go to whoever is cheapest.
Norwich’s city centre is nearly all pedestrianised yet it’s so full & parking is all paid so I’m doubtful its all about parking charges.
I can’t afford the supplement to buy from butchers, bakers etc. Yes the food is nicer. Yes it helps the community. However I can’t afford more than I pay at Lidl. And that’s all there is to it. Not to mention MOST of my local shops are takeaways, and shops aimed at cultures I am not part of.
99% of the time they offer a shit service and aren't open when the majority of people can shop. I get that it's hard to compete with supermarkets and online shopping, but most don't even try.
I shop local as much as I can, but its not always possible. You may be able to use local shops for a full weekly shop for example, but its much more costly and time consuming than popping to the supermarket. This isn't to say its the fault of the local shop owners, it would be impossible for them to compete, but when people don't have the money they can't spend the money. But then its a question of what do we define as local? There's a shop near me with posters in the window preaching the importance of shopping local and supporting local business owners, something that's also all over their social media. Their business is literally buying the cheapest tat on temu and ali express and selling it at a considerable markup. Is it a local business if every single item is shipped over from China, just because the shop keeper is independent? On the parking front, I do think it plays a role in the demise of the highest highstreet in general, not just local shops. 90p an hour isn't too bad but some places are utterly stupid and is just another barrier. I've just got back from a country with hardly any pay and display places - local shops seem much busier and there's more of them.
Jesus wept- I wish I had to pay 90p an hour parking- try living near a big city and having to take out a loan to park for any period of time.
Price vs quality for me. I'll happily shop local if it's a few quid extra and it means better service, better after care, and/or a better product. But usually it means spending 2x as much for something that is marginally better *at best* and having to deal with a surly shopkeeper when something goes wrong, instead of Amazon that will refund me on the same day I post the return.
High streets need to adapt there opening and closing times if they want to survive. When you work 9-5 you can’t go in most shops because they are also 9-5.
My local town with paid for parking, Loads of empty shops... The small village next door free parking... And it's thriving. Probably has more shops than the bigger town...
No. I don’t shop. I get groceries. And occasionally I have to buy something. But we don’t do shopping for liesure. We do go for coffee. Go the local board game shop. Go for karaoke. Go for food. Hanging out with friends. I’d use specialised shops, the local butcher. But he closes at 17:00. The Brits aren’t very good at retail.
I'm a fan of shop local, but I am so confused by people who are upset by a 90p parking charge. Nowhere near me has anything less than 1.20 an hour, we'd be dead pleased with 90p???
The problem is capitalism. It's a system built for a world that existed two hundred years ago. The world is very different now. We recognise that we need to reduce environmental impact and that means creating living conditions where people don't need to travel to get the things they need and this means local establishments. However, this also means that many locations simply don't have sufficient numbers to maintain a successful business under the capitalist framework. This is why we need a new system that subsidises things that we know we need.
I've said this a million times to the point I might copy and paste it next time, but here's my opinion as a small business owner who had a failed shop and now sells online. The traditional high street is dead. It's gone. Too late. But that doesn't mean you can't shop local. In fact, I'd rebrand "shop local" to "support your local economy". Shopping local doesn't mean - "Buy your shoes from Tracy's Shoe Shop open Mon to Tuesday 9am - 10am". Supporting your local economy means buying your shoes from ShoeEmporium online, the shoe website that employs six local people and has a director that works on the factory floor. There are plenty of small to medium businesses in this country with turnovers from a few thousand to several million that are still "local businesses". The options aren't shitty high street shops OR trillion dollar retail behemoths (Amazon). There are "local" options in the middle. Oh and parking absolutely kills high streets. It creates a barrier to entry that the retail parks don't have, and 90p is actually not too bad. If you want a couple of hours and you go to some larger towns or small cities you could easily be looking at several pounds.
Yes, especially since I've supported my local cafes, coffee shops, sandwich shops, garden centres and clothing shops.
Not really. If it's food wise I'll just go sainsbury otherwise I'll order it on amazon. Unless I'm being impatient and can nip to curry's or argos
If you mean “go to the Esso garage at the end of the road for stuff I have run out of and sweets/comics for the kids” then yes, I do shop local! But when it comes down to the high street, which is either charity shops/old lady boutique/overpriced wine shop/independent hardware shop that is always half empty, then it’s a no from me.
In my case there's very few local shops around me most of whats here are chain stores
My high street won the "UKs best high Street" award in 2020 and is mostly made up of locally owned businesses. Shopping local here is easy and I do it near daily, but then for any decent variety of food or products I have to go online or to cities nearby. The stupid opening hours many have has made it hard to go, which is so frustrating because there is a cool comic kinda shop by me but they are never open when I can go there. One of the best restaurants in this whole valley have no advertising which makes no business sense - it's attached to a very popular farm shop. Additionally the variety of choice is dreary. In fact, I even had to Google review a shop that was literally next to my bus stop - literally their entire window was grave decorations and "in memory of" and similar stuff when they are supposed to be a spirituality/tarot reading shop. It upset me as I had to look at objects everyday that reminded me of my losses. In fairness to them, they have changed it after my review thank goodness, the window is all Buddha and Insence now. I dont like how many local shops dodge taxes and lose SO MUCH custom by not having card payment facilities. One of the most popular cafes in my valley does not accept card payment, so many people go in hoping for some toast and a coffee - they don't want to have to walk a mile and get more money than they wanted to spend. Unless you are desperate for a coffee, who is going to withdraw £10+ just to spend 2.50 on a coffee with the added hassle of having to go to the atm? People go elsewhere.
I would if any of them were ever open when I want to shop I had a local shop I wanted to support, closed at 5 pm mid-week and closed on Sunday. As an office worker(like many people) I could not go, so I ended up ordering online....
As a motorist, if I go shopping in a town centre, parking charges are like a tax to be added to my purchase. Often parking costs as much as or more than delivery from an online store - in which case, I may as well buy online. Of course, that does put money in the pockets of Amazon and their ilk, instead of local businesses. > There's no shoe shops, no clothes shops, nothing In many towns, there used to many such shops but the locals ones were taken over or driven out of business by national chains in the 1960s - 1970s. Now, the national chains have mostly moved to out-of-town retail parks (which all have free parking). In addition to parking costs, town centre business rates are a significant issue for large retailers. Charities don't pay business rates and will typically take a five year lease on a commercial unit for zero rent - but the property owner doesn't have to pay business rates. Realistically, times have changed and many people do much of their shopping online. Town centres will probably have to be repurposed, probably for much needed housing. I think a change of use from any commercial use to residential use should be a permitted development right.
Yeah, shopkeepers love to blame roadworks and parking charges for customers not wanting to visit their shops.
Parking does make a difference. I could drive to the high street and go to an independent care shop but then I have to piss around getting money, getting change and pay £1-3 to spend five minutes buying a card. Or I can use the apps if they feel like working, I actually service (limited where I live) and fck about with that just to go in a shop for two minutes. Some only have online parking so if my phone is dead or I have no service, I cannot park. I end up driving to the shopping centre with unlimited parking and going into cars factory.
I try to shop local as much as possible but with the rising costs it’s hard to, especially with meat prices. I still will always get my fruit and veg from the market in my town (it’s a really good one so there’s always good availability and I find produce lasts longer) but due to meat prices I can’t justify buying meat from the market anymore. Its frustrating because the market is a big part of my town but when you can’t afford the prices you have to swap to shopping at supermarkets. Our market closes at 4 on weekdays and doesn’t open on Sundays so it’s also the availability when you work 8:30- 5:30 so the market opens after you start work and closes before you’re finished.
The niche shops are the best ones. They specifically aim to sell an item they KNOW doesn't sell very often but then complain they don't make many sales. Sorry Susan, but not everyone needs wind chimes every week.
I'd support it if there was anything decent to support, it's all cafes, restaurants gift shops or women's clothes. There's just nothing local for me to buy and I'm not gonna waste my money on crap I don't want just because Sharon round the corner sold it to me