The death of the high street.

[Tempest_5]

That by implies that you are a Weirdo...

[Tempest_5]

Seriously though, one of the streets into the centre of one of my local towns (Chichester) down here on the South coast is gradually becoming a gentrified mix of bland similar "architecture" flats and retirement homes. It's just depressing, the level of daylight drops due to the increased height and it all looks the same. It's not quite encroached on the town centre yet but it's altering the feel of that area.

Not as bad as this though,

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/legen...

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/owner...

[Julian Thompson]

egor110 said:

It would be good if something was done to help proper small independent shops.

To get people back to the high street shops have to do more than just just sell the same things we can buy online , traders passionate about the items there selling so when the buyer comes out of the shop they feel they've had a good conversation and hopefully return.

As the other guy said - the rates relief has made a huge difference. My companies save over £1000 a month with this, which helps greatly.

However, I have to come back with some negatives against the high street.

Firstly, it is no use at all for the high street to have a defeatist attitude. I see this all the time - “it’s cheaper online so we don’t stock it” - we do stock it and we make no apology for the fact that it’s more convenient to buy it NOW. And we still make sales to happy customers.

Secondly, since the distance selling rules make it easier to return items online than in store - (bizarrely) - many shopkeepers have adopted a completely “Basil Fawlty” approach to returns. There is no point roughing a customer up because the box is a bit damaged. Take it back, smile and refund.

Third - just because you’re a little retail store don’t think that google reviews are not watching every single move your staff make behind the counter. Even little kind gestures and a fraction of “extra mile” doesn’t go unnoticed.

Finally - not every customer is horrible. There are sadly a very small percentage of nasty, rude and shifty/sneaky clients out there but don’t tar everyone with the same brush. Serving in retail is a tremendous skill and yet us shopkeepers insist on sticking untrained, unskilled and unsuitable people behind the counter and then we wonder why things are not going the way we want.

If the high street can combat these points and work more like the restaurant trade where they recognise their public visibility and trade on merits then I believe there is a good future.

I have to say we’ve been established since 1964 when my grandfather opened the business, but although a lot has changed the core of “Good morning, Sir” has not altered and we continue to do well. We also monitor “refusals” and immediately order into stock almost anything we have refused, even if the request is a bit bizarre.

[So]

Tempest_5 said:

Seriously though, one of the streets into the centre of one of my local towns (Chichester) down here on the South coast is gradually becoming a gentrified mix of bland similar "architecture" flats and retirement homes. It's just depressing, the level of daylight drops due to the increased height and it all looks the same. It's not quite encroached on the town centre yet but it's altering the feel of that area.

Not as bad as this though,

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/legen...

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/owner...

To be fair though, when I used to go on holiday near Chi in the 1970s and 80s it was pretty grim. It needed something doing to it.

[Tempest_5]

If you found it grim I think you will find they have made it worse.

[cardigankid]

gizlaroc said:

That is not how it works.

The internet sales tax is designed to put money back into the tax take for the UK, it is designed to give back some of the lost revenue they are getting from online traders who are using cheap warehouses and offices out of town and not giving much back in the way of rates etc......

The correct question to answer, for now, is a simple one...

"Should small companies be subsidising the largest corporations on the planet?"

That is the reality of it.

Obviously, I sympathise to a degree, but I don't agree. First, two wrongs don't make a right. The fact that retailers are over taxed does not mean that the solution is to overtax Amazon, and others like it, as well. The money used is not going to be used for the benefit of either of them. Secondly, this is a Luddite approach. Amazon have opened markets across the world up to customers everywhere and made them competitive. If I want a really obscure book which some shop has in Australia, I can buy it. I don't have to spend my life walking round bookshops to find it or pay a ridiculous profit to a middleman. There are other reasons why I may want to go to a bookshop. This is good. You need to deal with this reality, because it isn't going away.

Retail was a rip off gold mine for a number of groups, including town councils and property developers, certainly not everybody, for many years. As a result they got lazy and that is the real problem. In some areas that is still the case. Look at UK motorway service stations. They are always busy, they make money, so with very few exceptions like the Westmorland units at Shap and Tebay, they are complete rubbish. I recently had to stand in excrement to use a male toilet. They are foul and disgusting, but they have no competition, so they couldn't care less. Every shopping centre is charging silly rents, with the same stuff on sale at the same price as every other one. Why would you want to go there? Is that something you would want to preserve?

The solution is not to tax and regulate everything in sight to try to bring the old days back. The solution is for the various parties to get real, to sort out the obvious issues, then to use some imagination about how to create somewhere customers want to go, then to do the job properly. If there are real pro retailers out there, and I know that there are, then they can make a success of that.

Trying to stop the tide coming in is not the way forward.

[gizlaroc]

cardigankid said:

Obviously, I sympathise to a degree, but I don't agree. First, two wrongs don't make a right. The fact that retailers are over taxed does not mean that the solution is to overtax Amazon, and others like it, as well.

Overtax Amazon??

Are you kidding?

They are paying less than 0.5% in tax across the board.

I would be happy if they just paid VAT on any UK sales as everyone else has to, and then paid the same rate corporation tax as everyone else has to.


I just want the largest corporations on the planet to play by the same rules as everyone else.

[cardigankid]

It should also be borne in mind that while the UK has been trying to do it since Margaret Thatcher's day, you cannot run an economy on the model of buying cheap goods from China and India and retailing them for astronomic margins and calling it an industry. A moments thought will tell you that that will only go on so long. An economy needs to be balanced, and the fact that a lot of people are currently working in retail doesn't change that.

[cardigankid]

gizlaroc said:

Overtax Amazon??

Are you kidding?

They are paying less than 0.5% in tax across the board.

I would be happy if they just paid VAT on any UK sales as everyone else has to, and then paid the same rate corporation tax as everyone else has to.


I just want the largest corporations on the planet to play by the same rules as everyone else.

You are living in the past. The fact is that the UK tax regime is not competitive, and in a globalised economy that is just parochial. Amazon also has to compete with other online retailers. It's not invulnerable.

[gizlaroc]

I'm not living in the past at all, allowing them to not pay the tax that everyone else has to pay is allowing an unfair advantage, simple as that.

I use Amazon, I like the cheap prices, but I understand why they are able to afford to be able to offer the service they do.

[RKi]

gizlaroc said:

Overtax Amazon??

Are you kidding?

They are paying less than 0.5% in tax across the board.

I would be happy if they just paid VAT on any UK sales as everyone else has to, and then paid the same rate corporation tax as everyone else has to.


I just want the largest corporations on the planet to play by the same rules as everyone else.

A-F**cking_Men

[jamoor]

cardigankid said:

It should also be borne in mind that while the UK has been trying to do it since Margaret Thatcher's day, you cannot run an economy on the model of buying cheap goods from China and India and retailing them for astronomic margins and calling it an industry. A moments thought will tell you that that will only go on so long. An economy needs to be balanced, and the fact that a lot of people are currently working in retail doesn't change that.

I do agree with this, we seemed to have just replaced all of our industry with shopping malls. The only times it works is Oxford St and Biscester Village where foreigners come and spend like crazy.

[So]

Tempest_5 said:

If you found it grim I think you will find they have made it worse.

I might take my children there soon actually.

Are the Witterings / Bosham / Del Quay still nice?

[anonymous-user]

The High Street would be a winner in most areas if you could park and pop in to a shop. Most round here have such restrictive parking controls people just don’t bother.

[steve_k]

gizlaroc said:

That is not how it works.

The internet sales tax is designed to put money back into the tax take for the UK, it is designed to give back some of the lost revenue they are getting from online traders who are using cheap warehouses and offices out of town and not giving much back in the way of rates etc.

People like Amazon are paying around 1% tax in total, in fact last year they only paid £15m on £19.5b worth of turnover, considering our VAT rate is 20% even if they didn't have to pay any corporation tax that is not only a lot of lost revenue for the UK but more importantly it also gives them a seriously unfair advantage with just about everyone else who retails in the UK.

A flat 20% on all turnover would have given £3.8b.

So £15,000,000 vs £3800,000,000 is massive.

BTW, that £15m was 2016, they only paid £4.6m in 2017.

£15,000,000 a year is nice, however, £15,000,000 every single week day of the year, is far more realistic. That is the reality, they could/should be paying in 250x more.

I reckon I could get 10 of my customers together combined have paid more than Amazon, and they are guys that run aggregate firms, construction companies, and they are turning over 100th of what Amazon is doing.

Amazon argue that they make little profit on a huge turnover.
The problem with that is one of morals, should a company be allowed to run a company making little profit but taking such a huge share of the market?
Do we want to live in a society where the largest employment segment is put at risk?
Amazon are pumping any potential profits back into systems that can make them more profit, but that is at the expense of employing people, automation is almost here, that is their long term goal.




The correct question to answer, for now, is a simple one...

"Should small companies be subsidising the largest corporations on the planet?"

That is the reality of it.

I think you are confusing turnover with profit, Amazon UK profits for 2016 was £26.5m and rose to nearly £80m for 2017 but they then in 2017 invested quite a lot in UK infrastructure and offset a lot of tax in the process.

Your idea of a blanket 20% tax will not work, out of a 2016 profit of £26.5m you want them to pay £3.8bn tax simply because they turn over a lot of money ignoring the fact they make a very small margin, your tax burden idea would shut them down instead of raising extra tax.

Edited by steve_k on Sunday 9th December 08:14

[So]

V6 Pushfit said:

The High Street would be a winner in most areas if you could park and pop in to a shop. Most round here have such restrictive parking controls people just don’t bother.

Ah, a hobby horse of mine.

In the 90s I used to drive into Nottingham, park right in the centre on the street, outside a cafe, and go for coffee. I'd then shop in the small, individual clothes shops, before having lunch in one of the many restaurants and bars. The afternoon would then involve more shopping and I'd return to my car early evening to drive home. I might repeat the process in the evening for drinking / clubbing, leaving my car there and collecting it the following day. My credit cards were usually hammered, with every penny flowing into the coffers of Nottingham's businesses. I spent hundreds every single weekend.

In 2018, the cafe outside which I used to park is boarded up and has been for some time. If I tried to park outside it, a traffic warden would ticket me within seconds. So I have to queue for one of the car parks, the nearest being Fletcher Gate, which stinks of urine, is filthy and is frequented by beggars asking for change. They sit right by the ticket machines.

The cafes have now mostly gone, to be replaced by Caffe Nero and the like. Bridlesmith Gate, which used to be home to many nice shops is becoming abandoned, ditto Clumber Street. All the independent clothes shops have gone, as has Paul Smith's original shop. The choice of restaurants is still okay, but you've got to stray outside the immediate centre to find them.

I wouldn't dream of leaving my car in Fletcher Gate car park overnight, and if I did it would certainly be expensive.

So, what has happened? Is it the Internet causing the problem? Not in my estimation. It's because Nottingham City Council has made the city inaccessible and unappealing for people with money, whilst encouraging people with little money to go into the city. The demographic of people using the city has greatly changed and those who now go there cannot support the type of shops, bars and restaurants that make a city centre a pleasant place to be.

[anonymous-user]

Same scenario throughout the country, shops need footfall and if people are put off making that journey into town the centres will die

[Jonesy23]

The High Street has been stuffed by being unattractive and uncompetitive. Parking charges, taxes, mobs of the unemployable filling their day at the pub, unattractive retail offers - it all adds up so unless it's something for specialist as a shop or service people don't bother. And this is something that has been true for decades.


And apparently the answer to other people finding an alternative business model with lower costs isn't to respond to this by fixing the problems but to slap a tax on to try to ruin their model for them.

Quite why anyone should listen to any half arsed idea from a shark like Ashley I don't know. He might do things to help himself but the health of retailers or the High Street in general is something that never enters his head except as an opportunity for further scavenging.

And why does anyone think that a tax slapped on top is going to do anything but hurt the consumer who pays it? It won't make the High Street better unlike (for example) increased investment and lower costs.

As for turnover taxes - surely the domain of the financially illiterate who can't understand the difference between turnover and profit? Any time those pop up they just flag another idiot. If you really want their money then be the place they funnel their operating 'expenses' into, not away from.

[gizlaroc]

steve_k said:

I think you are confusing turnover with profit, Amazon UK profits for 2016 was £26.5m and rose to nearly £80m for 2017 but they then in 2017 invested quite a lot in UK infrastructure and offset a lot of tax in the process.

Your idea of a blanket 20% tax will not work, out of a 2016 profit of £26.5m you want them to pay £3.8bn tax simply because they turn over a lot of money ignoring the fact they make a very small margin, your tax burden idea would shut them down instead of raising extra tax.

No I'm not.

I was not talking about corporation tax, the tax on profits, I only mentioned the amount they had paid as that is pretty much all they had paid.
They have avoided paying UK vat on sales too, although the UK resellers obviously pay it selling through Amazon.

The 20% online tax would have to be factored into their pricing, at the moment they can undercut everyone, offer free postage etc. because they are saving where no one else can, through tax.

[gizlaroc]

I will admit it is a tricky one.

At the moment though, being in the EU, if we tax them more than they would be taxed in say Luxembourg, they will trade out of there for all UK sales and we will see nothing.

If we left the EU and then all sales in the UK no matter where it was shipped from could have VAT applied and then we would see them pay a fair amount.

I understand we have to do them tax deals, I think raising corp tax up 50% (Mr. Corbyn and McDonell) is crazy as we would see large corps simply shift their operations back overseas.

I was simply explaining that Ashley's 20% tax on online only retailers was not something the customer would get charged to purchase online, but more a tax that businesses would have to pay.