Do you shop on line? I do. I use Amazon frequently and Click & Collect from many shops. So am I contributing to the decline of the high-street by doing that?
I work on the customer service desk in a high end supermarket which has a partner high end shop (that should be enough clues). We deal with Click & Collect day in day out and it is hugely popular. The convenience of ordering something online, collecting it the next day in your local supermarket, and even returning it there if it isn't right, has proved to be one of the biggest services we offer. Customers repeatedly tell me how easy it is and how happy they are using it, and as workers we try and make sure their process is as seamless aa possible. Around Black Friday, and at Christmas, and the days when there is a Price Match (another clue), we are very busy. In fact I find it so easy I've even used it at Boots with ease, though they haven't quite got it done to as fine an art as we have. But this is very obviously the way people want to shop.
We all have busy lives now. The days of the majority of women being housewives at home looking, after the children, have long gone. Most women work if they can, or have to, whether part time or full time. We don't have time for the leisurely stroll around the shops very often. In the UK shops used to be closed on a Wednesday afternoon and all day Sundays, except for the Newsagents open Sunday morning for the papers. Ah the peace and quiet on a Sunday. It was a family day, and much appreciated after the hub of the working week. Whoever decided to be the first shop to open on Sunday should be condemned because society has changed so much because of it. Well maybe not just because of it, but it certainly has contributed to making our lives busier. You can now shop on every single day of the week, and some supermarkets are even open 24 hours. It's all about being competitive....where one shop goes the others have to follow just in case their customers go to the competition. But that's where the on-line shops come in.
The total convenience of being able to 'arm chair shop' when ever you want, even at midnight if need be, has proved to be very popular. Not only that, but if you are buying something as a present for someone close to you then you can do it discreetly, in the comfort of your own home, without them even knowing. Tuck your payment card in the cover of your mobile phone and they can be sitting next to you and not realise you are buying something...….as long as you face your lap top away from them!
So is all this contributing to the decline of the high-street? It could certainly be one reason why. There are so many shops closing, big and small. Our towns are full of empty shops, and even big companies are having to close some branches, or even end up going out of business, In the UK there have been some huge names close their doors, Mothercare, Maplins, Carpetright, British Home stores, and M&S and Debenhams closed some of their branches. It's made the headline news, and the media is full of it. People are being made redundant at an alarming pace in the retail sector. So can we help? Small businesses need our help certainly, and you can get some lovely unusual gifts in them...….but you can also do that on Amazon if you trawl through it, and possibly at a cheaper price. Large companies need to change what they are doing if they are under pressure business wise. Find out what we want. Find out what we need and provide it. Make it pleasurable to go in to a physical shop. That's all I can suggest. Speaking as someone who works in a retail shop that is constantly looking at ways to keep customers, and yet I shop on line, what can be done? I have no idea and am glad I don't have to come up with the new ideas.
Do you shop on line, or like to browse the physical shops? Do you have time to do either? Do you do both? When do you shop? How do you shop? Questions, questions. Our high-street is changing so much and companies need to keep up with these changes. I was thinking about butchers, greengrocers and bakers too, and how they should keep busy in theory, but the rise of the big supermarket has killed off many a small trade. I do long for those days of my youth and early motherhood when life seemed to be less frantic, and more leisurely. I feel for my children and grandchildren who live in an ever increasingly fast paced frantic world. I just hope I can keep up, and I also hope the business I work in is still here in years to come. Maybe we'll all end up like the people in that animated film Wall-e, sitting on our chairs doing absolutely everything from there! Not a pleasant thought for the future of man.
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