Would you fight to save your local shops ?

Question

The French look like they are going the same way as Britain..

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080525/tpl-france-politics-economy-retail-9eb7866.html

I try to support my local shops but they just cannot compete with the supermarkets. Its almost a luxury to be able to buy from them.

The time has come I think when you can go to any city in the word go to it's high street and you won't know which country you are in.

I hope they win . I can't even buy a mop bucket where I live !

Answer 1

If the prices in local shops were comparable to those in larger chain stores, then I would rally to keep them open if it came down to it.  I also try to support local businesses, but, as it is for you, most of them are too expensive for me.  Because I help run a small business in our town, I understand how difficult it is to make a profit and not just earn enough to keep the doors open; however, sometimes you have to keep prices low and squeeze by until your business is better established and patronage is more predictable if not regularly steady.

Answer 2

Can't any longer because the stupid bloody, short sighted local council raised the rents and rates so high that they all went out of business,  we had so many good, useful shops and now we are at the mercy of the supermarket. I trek away to do shopping because i don;t like being ripped off by these multinationals. I use markets as well, because if people don;t start going back to them, they will go too.

and the ones that have replaced the butcher, baker, greengrocer are all run by asians, sorry i am not being racist but those basically cater for the Asian community.

Answer 3

We don't have any local shops unless you consider the gas station/parts and equipment dealer and the peach packin house and the Methodist Church. If we go to Walmart we have to drive 40 miles, Kroger 50 miles. Most of our stuff comes from the internet and UPS. I like it that way too. If you live in the country like we do you can always drive to town and leave when you've had enough. But if you live in town you cannot get away from those crazy people.

Answer 4

I agree that local shops can not match the prices of the large supermarkets,but now the supermarkets are putting up their prices dramatically as they gain the monopolies in areas   where the small traders have been driven out of business and are price fixing with other big companies so they each make massive profits

Answer 5

Reality has to win, plus cost.

Local shops close down as they cannot compete with big shops.

What's going to happen if we can no longer afford fuel or driving?

Back to markets & home-grown?

Answer 6

no! i always buy local but too many of them are scheming robbing b******s, those i would not try to save.  one of my local shops buys multi-packs and sells as indivdual at full retail price which is illegal.  They cant blame supermarkets for behaviour like that, thats just greed oh but he has a nice shiny new merc.  Most of his customers are either too infirm and elderly to get to the supermarket.  I've reported him to the local council and the dept of fair trading.  If he looses his tobacconist license that will put a huge hole in his revenue and i'm glad!  you cant run a merc on 10p mix ups and lucky bags. hahaha

Answer 7

Our village shop is set to close in September.  The Post Office bit has been closed down and without it the rest of the shop can't survive.  It certainly is the end of an era, I've lived in the village 16 years, god knows how long the shops been here but .... not enough people use it and although I do use it (spend about £30 a week up there) I do my main shop at Tescos because I have to watch the pennies.  Should be fun watching the French go into battle though, they usually get so violent with their demonstrations they win !!

Answer 8

I think local shops r very important and will become more important when the fuel prices get even more crazy.

Villages need their local shop so it has to be fought for.

But how many people go to the supermarkets now and dont buy at all at the local or support them in any way so they r forced to close for economic reasons. These same people will rue the day when they have not got a car.

Answer 9

I would if I could - in my neighbourhood in south London the high street consists mainly of banks, building society's, fast-food franchises, bookies, charity shops and the ubiquitous assortment of  chain stores (Boots, Superdrug, Sainsburys, Iceland, Homebase etc...).

The only independent 'local' shops are a newsagents/convenience store and a couple of 'Pound' shops.

I remember the same high street as a kid - 2/3 times a week reluctantly dragged around by me mum from butchers to bakers, to the greengrocers to the barbers (aaaghhh!), to the local mens/boys clothes outfitters (again aaaghhh!) to our one and only department store - stopping a hundred times along the way to chat to neighbours - getting to the end fo the street, turning around and doing it all again! The whole process would take a minimum of four hours...

If I'd behaved me-self (a rare event!) we'd pop into the Wimpy for a Knickerbocker Glory.

Thinking about it, I don't miss those days at all - give me the relative convenience of the super-store/shopping mall any day!

Answer 10

Well, in the midst of all the other local shops closing down round here, the chemist took some action when he found out the likes of Boots were going to do repeat prescriptions for their customers, so he ran a petition, and now has the local doctors taking on line repeat prescriptions which are then delivered to him, and all the customer has to do is to go and collect the medicines (etc) - but of course, whilst they're there, they buy a lot of the sort of things that they'd normally get in Boots or the supermarket. The result is of course, that HE is open and doing flourishing business, whereas the moaners - like the butcher: "I can't be bothered with all those hygiene regulations and certificates...." - have closed down.

I think that says - if not all, then certainly, most of it !