No superstore means prosperity
It may be age catching up with me but when I was young I remember there was a much greater variety of shops on our high street. We had greengrocers, butchers, bakers and a number of general food stores. We had Tesco and Sainsbury's (Definitely number one then) but we had the Co-Op, Lipton's, International and Woolworth was a big presence with a big food section. There were also a number of general stores. Over the years they've all gone, that much loved butcher who served your granny has gone to the wall unable to compete.
Going on holiday was an adventure since you would find other shops. You would find things that you never saw at home. For instance sea side towns had different comics. They had American imports with names like Ashonishing Tales, Uncanny and the likes. You rarely saw these at home. You would find some big department store that had been there seen the 1850's.
Nowadays, wherever in the country you go, you are pretty sure of what you are going to find. The same banks and building societies. A branch of Boots and WH Smith's and of course "pound" shops selling the usual tat. Oh and a big out of town superstore or two.
Amusingly Tesco and M&S are reopening small "convenience" stores in the high street putting further pressure on what small stores that still remain. Nowadays the one challenge to the big boys is the Euro discounters like Lidl, Netto and Aldi.
The thing is that when I am in those places that do still have a family butcher I find myself thinking "Pork Chops are how much? I can get them for x in .....". Or in the bakers "I can get 10 of those in ......... for that". I presume that people who don't have transport are forced to shop there.
And that is the problem. I find myself walking into farm shops or markets and thinking "well mate how the hell can it be cheaper to buy from a supermarket? how do people afford to live here?" The supermarkets are very very good at squeezing the margins and we have all become incredibly price conscious. I'm told that quality suffers? Does it? I don't know but until we value service and quality over price I see no change happening soon.
5 comments:
There was always a chair too in case an elderly person needed to rest in between shopping and you had time to put your change away without feeling guilty for holding up the person behind you.
On the other hand there is so much more available these days, electrical, clothing, gardening etc
The thing is boo, it's still very much like that here, in this part of Wales, anyway. There are still seats near tills in some shops for people to sit and rest (and even in M&S here!) and people do still take the time putting away their change, but they still get tutted at (mainly by me!) I think it's one of the things I like about living here though, it's as close to being back in the 60s as you can get nowadays.
We used to have just one small supermarket, now we have three and several smaller shops have closed. All have been replaced by hairdressers, how very useful.
thinks....... I live in a town of 80,000 plus people and we have no bookshop!!
We do have 3 tesco's and a Sainsbury
"thinks....... I live in a town of 80,000 plus people and we have no bookshop!! "
Our nearest town is about 3x that size and until recently it only had one bookshop, and that was WH Smiths. Now, we also have an Ottakers (sp), and one of those clearance places.
Conversely, when I lived in Scarborough, there were 4 bookshops (not including Smiths) within a five minute walk of my house.
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