The death of the high street.

[Carrot]

HOGEPH said:

Just reminded me of my resolution to avoid high street shopping in 2019.

Amen to that.

[powerstroke]

HOGEPH said:

I went into the local town to get some photo frames needed for Xmas eve.

1st shop didn't have the size I wanted.

2nd shop didn't have any.

3rd shop didn't have them in the price range I wanted.

Sat back in car, ordered them from Amazon for delivery tomorrow, admittedly not as cheap as the ones the first shop didn't have, but then they didn't have them, did they.

Just reminded me of my resolution to avoid high street shopping in 2019.

This , same sort of time wasting disappointment for me , sorry high street we have invented something better !!!..
Next to go the massive glass palace car dealerships !! with car sales down across Europe , wonder which of the white goods marques will be first to bail out to go online,
Vauxhall perhaps ???

[Carrot]

powerstroke said:

HOGEPH said:

I went into the local town to get some photo frames needed for Xmas eve.

1st shop didn't have the size I wanted.

2nd shop didn't have any.

3rd shop didn't have them in the price range I wanted.

Sat back in car, ordered them from Amazon for delivery tomorrow, admittedly not as cheap as the ones the first shop didn't have, but then they didn't have them, did they.

Just reminded me of my resolution to avoid high street shopping in 2019.

This , same sort of time wasting disappointment for me , sorry high street we have invented something better !!!..
Next to go the massive glass palace car dealerships !! with car sales down across Europe , wonder which of the white goods marques will be first to bail out to go online,
Vauxhall perhaps ???

I don't seer why car sales people are needed at all, along with estate agents. Hyundai and some other brands now do direct online purchasing. Rightmove for houses gives 99% of the info on normal housing that one needs. When we purchased ours, the agent did nothing for the seller but list it and get a moody teenager to show us around...

[mike74]

My high street and local supermarkets definitely aren't as busy as previous years.

Yet still Christmas seems to somehow draw out the people who quite obviously never leave the house the rest of the year and subsequently have no concept what so ever how to... drive, park or make their way around supermarket aisles without being bumbling dithering morons.

[Helicopter123]

Anecdotal evidence of a disappointing weekend before Christmas for many retailers.

Rents due 25th.

Ominous.

[So]

mike74 said:

My high street and local supermarkets definitely aren't as busy as previous years.

Yet still Christmas seems to somehow draw out the people who quite obviously never leave the house the rest of the year and subsequently have no concept what so ever how to... drive, park or make their way around supermarket aisles without being bumbling dithering morons.

Yes the dithering morons have been out in force, I’ve noticed that. Elderly gents in hats behind the wheel and transfixed in shopping aisles. I doubt they have the spending power to save the high street.

[Thankyou4calling]

Have we ever, I mean EVER had a Christmas without retailers having massive distress sales and saying it’s the worst in living memory.

To my mind you could simply write the same story every year.

[Hub]

PBDirector said:

Today, the last Saturday before Xmas, I went into town at 10am. No queue for parking, the four shops I went into I didn’t have to queue at the tills. Surely amazon are going to be reporting record sales...

(I get that these anecdotes are totally meaningless and that the plural of anecdote isn’t data.)

I work in a town centre. I popped out at lunch last week to pick up a book for the wife - £9.99 in WHSmith or Waterstones. Looked on Amazon - £3.99. No brainer!

And yes it has felt quiet. The Christmas market and winter wonderland areas are rammed but the shops and high street have been not so busy.

The big Tesco supermarket car park was completely full and people looking for spaces at 9:30am on Friday though!

[gizlaroc]

Thankyou4calling said:

Have we ever, I mean EVER had a Christmas without retailers having massive distress sales and saying it’s the worst in living memory.

To my mind you could simply write the same story every year.

We had a record week this time last year, up over 10% on our best ever previous week, this year we are down but not by much, just under 3%.

I'm more than happy with that as I was expecting a bigger dip simply based on the fact Saturday was the last day for us last year, where as we still have Monday this year and we tend to take a lot of money on Xmas Eve.

Oh, and we have not gone to sale, even though lots of the big stores have. Once again they are panicking.
If I had reduced everything by 25%, would I have sold 25% more items? I doubt it.
But the reality is I need to sell 50% more in real terms, unless I am just trying to improve cash flow and don't care about margin, and as we all know, margin is everything for most retailers.


The problem the big stores have is once one of them goes to sale they all have to or they will do bugger all business.
House Of Fraser and Debenhams went first.....again.
tts.

[hyphen]

Hub said:

I work in a town centre. I popped out at lunch last week to pick up a book for the wife - £9.99 in WHSmith or Waterstones. Looked on Amazon - £3.99. No brainer!

And yes it has felt quiet. The Christmas market and winter wonderland areas are rammed but the shops and high street have been not so busy.

The big Tesco supermarket car park was completely full and people looking for spaces at 9:30am on Friday though!

Was it cheaper than store price, on the online Waterstones or whSmith's sites?

Did you look, or just Amazon.

[Thankyou4calling]

gizlaroc said:

Thankyou4calling said:

Have we ever, I mean EVER had a Christmas without retailers having massive distress sales and saying it’s the worst in living memory.

To my mind you could simply write the same story every year.

We had a record week this time last year, up over 10% on our best ever previous week, this year we are down but not by much, just under 3%.

I'm more than happy with that as I was expecting a bigger dip simply based on the fact Saturday was the last day for us last year, where as we still have Monday this year and we tend to take a lot of money on Xmas Eve.

Oh, and we have not gone to sale, even though lots of the big stores have. Once again they are panicking.
If I had reduced everything by 25%, would I have sold 25% more items? I doubt it.
But the reality is I need to sell 50% more in real terms, unless I am just trying to improve cash flow and don't care about margin, and as we all know, margin is everything for most retailers.


The problem the big stores have is once one of them goes to sale they all have to or they will do bugger all business.
House Of Fraser and Debenhams went first.....again.
tts.

Always enjoy your posts Gizlaroc. Very enlightening.

I don’t know what town you are in but I visit Elderkin in Spalding twice a year ( from London) would love to pop in if you are near.

TY4C

[Red 4]

hyphen said:

Was it cheaper on the online Waterstones or whSmith's site

This is the thing though ...

Why is stuff often cheaper online from the same retailer ?

Eg - Perfume at Debenhams.

In store £72

Online £54.

So order it online, someone goes to the warehouse and gets it, packages it, puts it in a van, it gets driven to the store, someone gets it out of the van, brings it into the store and puts it behind the counter ... Then you get an email saying it's ready for collection.

Surely this incurs more cost to the retailer ...

Why not just sell it for the same price in store to begin with ?

WH Smith ( and many others ) are the same ...

[gizlaroc]

Thankyou4calling said:

Always enjoy your posts Gizlaroc. Very enlightening.

I don’t know what town you are in but I visit Elderkin in Spalding twice a year ( from London) would love to pop in if you are near.

TY4C

We are in Wymondham, about 9 miles south of Norwich just off the A11.
Coffee is always on if you are passing.

[Fittster]

eldar said:

PBDirector said:

Today, the last Saturday before Xmas, I went into town at 10am. No queue for parking, the four shops I went into I didn’t have to queue at the tills. Surely amazon are going to be reporting record sales...

(I get that these anecdotes are totally meaningless and that the plural of anecdote isn’t data.)

Similar experience in Rugby. Expectation was it would be rammed, reality was easy to park, no queues, done in 70 minutes. Almost surreal.

Where in Rugby did you go? Town Center of Elliott's field.

[Hub]

hyphen said:

Hub said:

I work in a town centre. I popped out at lunch last week to pick up a book for the wife - £9.99 in WHSmith or Waterstones. Looked on Amazon - £3.99. No brainer!

And yes it has felt quiet. The Christmas market and winter wonderland areas are rammed but the shops and high street have been not so busy.

The big Tesco supermarket car park was completely full and people looking for spaces at 9:30am on Friday though!

Was it cheaper than store price, on the online Waterstones or whSmith's sites?

Did you look, or just Amazon.

Yes, same price on Waterstones, a bit cheaper on WHSmith (£7 or so).

[snuffy]

Thankyou4calling said:

Have we ever, I mean EVER had a Christmas without retailers having massive distress sales and saying it’s the worst in living memory.

To my mind you could simply write the same story every year.

Spot on.

Every year the same thing gets reported "oh, it's all terrible, it's worse than last year" etc, etc.

And here we are:

2017 : High Street Christmas sales figures fail to sparkle ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38526276 )

2016 : Shops suffer as Christmas sales fall, says ONS ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35381079 )

2015 : Christmas retail sales show signs of weakness ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-35154099/ch... )

2011 : Weak retail spending sees pre-Christmas sales ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-16045636/weak-ret... )

2010 : Retailers still cautious about Christmas sales ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11980684 )

2008 : Weak retail sales over Christmas ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7195576.stm )

2007 : Slower sales growth for retailers ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7152318.stm )

2005 : Christmas sales worst since 1981 ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4194077.stm )

2003 : Pre-Christmas retail sales disappoint ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2622103.stm )

Edited by snuffy on Sunday 23 December 10:11

[gizlaroc]

Red 4 said:

Why not just sell it for the same price in store to begin with ?

Because with many products you would go bust.

Margin is everything.

If I sold purely on Amazon my overheads would be dramatically reduced, I would pay them 15%.
I would have some wages, shipping, marketing and warehousing costs of course, but I would half my wage bill, reduce rates and rents from around £50,000 a year to maybe £10,000 a year, and therefore I could sell it far cheaper and make more money.

Problem is, I would not get the brands I want. They won't supply me if I was Amazon only.

And I would not want to be online only with just my website as I have yet to meet only a dozen people who are truly making that work. By work I mean make proper money, not lose money each year with the aim to be to gobble market share and dominate in the long game.



I agree though, rather than £54 online and £72 in store, surely better to look at your overall running costs and put them all in at £60?
If you are in store and see it at £60 and can get it there and then, even if someone else is advertising it for £6 less somewhere, most people will be happy to pay 10% more to have it now.

All you will do is annoy the customer if they get home and then see it cheaper online, even more so if it is you selling it cheaper too!





I should just add, we used to sell quite a bit on Amazon, mainly some of the rarer Barbour pieces that most stores can't get, and also a brand called fit-flops when they launched in the UK 10 years or so back.
It was a nightmare.
Returns rate is around 65%.
Customers were genuinely idiots, used to get 1 star reviews because of some truly stupid reasons such as "I order the wrong size and they want me to return them for a refund and I don't have time." or "I'm normally a size 6 but ordered a 5 because they looked big in the photo but they don't fit me they are too small."
Seriously, my blood pressure couldn't take any more so we gave up on it. Life is too short.

Edited by gizlaroc on Sunday 23 December 10:16

[Red 4]

Thanks for your reply gizlaroc.

The thing about annoying the customer with lower prices online though ...

Another example - WH Smith.

Picked up a Guy Martin book a couple of years ago - £20 in store.

Checked WH Smith website - it was £10 online.

I am in the shop but I need to order online, wait a couple of days and then go back to the shop to collect the book that has been shipped from the warehouse !

Just sell me the one I've got in my hand for a tenner ! Surely that benefits both the retailer and me !

But no, they won't do it.

All more faff than it needs to be !

Edited by Red 4 on Sunday 23 December 10:22

[gizlaroc]

Red 4 said:

Thanks for your reply gizlaroc.

The thing about annoying the customer with lower prices online though ...

Another example - WH Smith.

Picked up a Guy Martin book a couple of years ago - £20 in store.

Checked WH Smith website - it was £10 online.

I am in the shop but I need to order online, wait a couple of days and then go back to the shop to collect the book that has been shipped from the warehouse !

Just sell me the one I've got in my hand for a tenner !

But no, they won't do it.

All more faff than it needs to be !

Exactly, it just annoys customers.


Too many stores look at online and in store as separate entities, you can't do that without annoy your customers, you need to look at over all operating costs and aim for a margin across the two.
The online side should allow you to bring down prices in store.

We don't even sell online anymore, we use it more as a blog to show product and things we like. If you sell online you are just competing with the cheapest out there, with competition such as Amazon you will never compete so why bother trying?

With that book I bet if it was £15 you would have just bought it? Thinking, it is hear now. I know I could order somewhere and get it £5 less but....I'm lazy and want it now.

[Red 4]

gizlaroc said:

With that book I bet if it was £15 you would have just bought it? Thinking, it is hear now. I know I could order somewhere and get it £5 less but....I'm lazy and want it now.

That would provide me with a conundrum

I don't like paying more than I need to.

I may have to break out the calculator and consider fuel costs, MPG, total mileage covered for a return trip back to the shop, general wear and tear on tyres, brakes, suspension components, parking, the wear on my shoes for walking back to the shop ... The list is endless.

All things considered, I'd probably pay the extra fiver.

But I'd still be pissed off