The fiasco that the UK Hight Street has seen in only the first two weeks of 2013 is something everyone should be concerned about. First it was Jessops, a well established photography retailer going into administration and then this week, HMV. Notwithstanding the terrible ordeal of thousands losing their jobs (and that is bad enough) it adds yet more empty store-fronts in the high streets and shopping malls of the UK. Many have been saying that out-of-town shopping malls are the way of the future yet even these are suffering as the world of retail steadily changes, or rather, we the consumer changes the way we buy things.
It is a sad fact that in most developing countries the supermarkets, many of which can only really be reached by car, have taken a huge chunk out of the food market leaving only specialists offering niche products, to survive elsewhere. Supermarkets now stock far more than just food. Go into any large one and you'll find up to half the aisles full of non-food items, again hitting at the livelihoods of not only small local specialist stores but also of national chains such as Jessops and HMV. OK, maybe supermarkets may not be entirely to blame for these two companies going bust but they have played their part, as have their online sites too. Now that supermarkets are trying to get back into our high streets by opening smaller stores (where they used to be in the first place of course) it really is difficult to see how smaller local shops will survive long-term.
Perhaps the only thing to do is to use them and shop locally - now that won't catch on, will it?
No comments:
Post a Comment