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Books, not bombs
I am loath to buy clothes of any description on line least of all shoes. I want to make sure they are right before buying with regards to fit, comfort, colour, feel and materials.
Is the High Street doomed
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pinkmonkey
2.4 hour party person
We’re fitting everything properly, no slapdash going on. A decent online business should also monitor returns and why they’ve been returned. So if there’s a common problem, it can be fixed. I know what you mean, but no one will sink money into stores now it’s considered high risk. It is depressing though. When I go to the component fair in Milan I’d always visit the independent shoe shops. Except they’ve all gone now, the good ones, every last one. To be turned into Zara etc. The only place left is the department store. I loved Fiorucci, it was a huge basement store, like an indoor market. Full of crazy shit, mad clothing, gifts etc, quite inexpensive. They sold the lease to H&M, it’s so boring!I am loath to buy clothes of any description on line least of all shoes. I want to make sure they are right before buying with regards to fit, comfort, colour, feel and materials.
Cloo
Banana for scale
I wonder if South Molton's best gambit (and I don't know if its all under one ownership, West End streets are more likely to be) is to take a gamble on giving up shops on the cheap initially to young designers straight out of Central St Martins/selling around Brick Lane and try to attract the big money from Bond St round the corner as a place to find The Next Big Thing. Be sure to advertise in Chinese and Japanese as well to get the high end fashion tourist bucks. If that worked out as a loss leader could be a more sustainable model, and the small shops would be ok for a label just starting out.
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Books, not bombs
I can point you in the direction or one or two good independent British shoemakers in London but am astonished you cannot find an indie in Milan.
They love their fashion/style there almost more than anywhere \\\\\\i can thinkof.
moochedit
I'm not feeding seagulls
lloyds pharmacies closing...
www.cityam.com
Lloyds Pharmacy at risk of shutting 1,300 sites in another fatal blow for highstreet
Lloyds Pharmacy has put all of its 1,300 sites at risk of closure in another major blow for the highstreet. According to reports in The Sun, the It comes as the beleaguered chain, which is owned by Aurelius Group, already revealed this year that it would close 237 of its sites which operate...
www.cityam.com
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
I've got to say my local high street seems pretty healthy. People working from home and buying coffees/sandwiches locally rather than in town, pottering round at lunchtime etc. Even the slightly dead back street has got a decent amount of junk shops on it now.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Carmarthen is dead. Deader than dead. This is a (the?) middle class town of my county and there's virtually nothing left. Down the road is Ammanford, a town killed by Thatcher's victory in the Miner's strike, never recovered, but now Carmarthen looks pretty much the same. I've never seen anything like it in a supposedly (relatively) well-off town. It's not just the 'High Street' and the main pedestrianised shopping bit. It's every shopping bit. Every street. The streets used to be full. I was there on Monday and I reckon I passed a handful of people at most on each street. Ghost town.
pinkmonkey
2.4 hour party person
Yes I know many of the London ones, I either collab or pass work on. But the indie designer shoe boutiques have gone. London ones also. Remember Kate Kuba? Poste Mistress? Sure you can go in Prada or whatever clothing store and get shoes there, you can go to the dept store (where the shoe floor is run by Kurt Geiger who are British) but the indies have gone. I texted my friend who makes shoe samples in Rome when I was last there, because one of them had paper over the windows like it was being refurbed and she texted me back, ‘Zara, they offered a lot of money’. That was pre pandemic, wonder what it’s like now?
pinkmonkey
2.4 hour party person
Where I live now rents are dirt cheap £50 - £100 a week. The village where we winter moor has a post war shopping parade. Every unit is taken. Theres a sewing and knitting shop which does classes and ad hoc teaching (just ask her) and repairs, a thai cafe, a bakery, a reptile/tropical fish store, & the usual hairdressers, chippy etc. At the other end of town every unit in that shopping parade is taken except one. Another shop keeper said its because its owned by a London based landlord and they are asking too much.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Worthing seems to be doing OKish, although I admit I've not been into the 'retail town centre' since sometime before covid, but apparently we have less than half the UK average of empty retail premises, and, of course, many places have higher than the average. 
Sparkle Motion
Well-Known Member
My local Lloyds Pharmacy has had online complaints about poor service for years. Since changing name people have been praising a huge improvement. People will use good shops.lloyds pharmacies closing...
Lloyds Pharmacy at risk of shutting 1,300 sites in another fatal blow for highstreet
Lloyds Pharmacy has put all of its 1,300 sites at risk of closure in another major blow for the highstreet. According to reports in The Sun, the It comes as the beleaguered chain, which is owned by Aurelius Group, already revealed this year that it would close 237 of its sites which operate...
hash tag
Books, not bombs
Many people are now working from home once or twice a week. Mrs Tag ( and her staff ) now all work from home two days a week if not more, thats 40% of the time.
City places don't receive the tourist flow.
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
Well, that's what I'm saying. They've opened up here in the burbs instead.
hash tag
Books, not bombs
I don't see drive throughs killing the high street but there are not great
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
Croydon is (or was) a destination shopping area though, not really a local one. That is looking very miserable, it's true.
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
After one of my occasional incursions into town today, I'm more convinced than ever that my local High St could only benefit from a small tactical device! The latest bright idea for regeneration is to remove the decades long moratorium on new licenced premises - so the local usual-suspects are taking over the empty shops for places to eat and drink that only a few can afford and won't even be open for most of the day.
Even the charity shops are moving out..!
Even the charity shops are moving out..!
hash tag
Books, not bombs
Touted as second only to London at one point, what with the flyover, underpass, tall buildings, commerce, shopping centres....and now
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
I don't see drive throughs killing the high street but there are not great
Drive throughs have become big here. A friend moved from a busy suburban high st chain place to become the manager of a new drive through on one of the main roads but for the first couple of years it really struggled. During and post-pandemic however, their three drive through locations went straight into the top five in the city and stayed there since, for sit-in and drive through. Only their two most central locations attract more customers now and that is mainly due to a retail footprint and lunchtime trade as the offices returned to work.
Even where locally-owned firms are concerned, most of the ones I've seen succeed post-pandemic have been places who opened or relocated to somewhere with vehicle access to at least some part of their trade - One bakery operates three honesty boxes in neighbouring towns which account for most of their traditional market sales, whilst the bakery itself is now thriving as more of a cafe than a traditional bakers shop after the bakery goes out to the boxes in the early mornings. Another larger Inverness-based firm is expanding right through the North East and all their new locations have a drive-through/vehicle access element and they have taken-over several former filling stations and a tourist info place for this very reason.
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I think we may also just be past peak stuff. Leisure time spent in the pursuit of conspicuous consumption may be on the wane, with younger people not having the space to store or display stuff and generally more concern for the environmental consequences of buy-and-bin. And nobody needs to go shopping for CDs or DVDs, for example.
Elpenor
a clown’s heart and a mandolin
I buy a lot of both of those - from charity shops - however I will concede I’m far from typical
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
I think for a swathe of the middle-aged, middle-class conspicuous consumption now comes in the form of purchasing off-the-shelf "experiences". Their presence on the high street is more peripheral and fleeting. Remember getting your toes nibbled by fish in the mall?
hash tag
Books, not bombs
I still do. We have talked about streaming or buying download stuff but I just cant do it.
There is nothing like having an actual album for the cover, for the sleeve notes, for stamping your character on your home.
There is nothing like going in to a shop and having a flick through the discs and also chatting to sales assistants about them.
I once dated a sales assistant who I met while buying records bit thats a different story.
ska invita
back on the other side
i dont know if they have fish nibbling but nail bars are still rampant
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Salons (or general beauty, barbers etc), coffee shops and chicken shops seem to be booming. Clothes shops are fucked beyond measure
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