Non essential shops to re-open…

[richlist]

I've discovered that some items are totally made for online purchasing and other items are definitely not. The definitely don't buy on line items can result in serious dissappointment.
You just can't beat the 'pick it up and take a closer look' action that a visit to the shops entails.

Although having a personal shopper can mean you can virtually do without online or visits to the shops.

[Itsallaguess]

I've discovered that some items are totally made for online purchasing and other items are definitely not. The definitely don't buy on line items can result in serious disappointment.

You just can't beat the 'pick it up and take a closer look' action that a visit to the shops entails.

Swiftly followed, of course, by the 'put it back down and go and order it online when you're back home' action...

No criticism in the above is intended towards anyone who might do this, because of course I'm guilty of this myself, but I do often have a nagging feeling that the online purchase experience is as good as it is at the moment because there is still (just...) an alternative to it...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess (who almost never goes into town for anything other than Wilkos, Screwfix, or Morrisons...)

[UncleEbenezer]

I've discovered that some items are totally made for online purchasing and other items are definitely not. The definitely don't buy on line items can result in serious dissappointment.
You just can't beat the 'pick it up and take a closer look' action that a visit to the shops entails.

Indeedie. Fresh food? See it first, please! Clothes? Try them on! Gadgets? Browse online.

Talking of which, I want a new office chair, but I really want to sit in it before buying. Once upon a long time ago I could go into Staples and do that; nowadays it's all online, so pure pot-luck whether I can get anything comfortable

But why has delivery of online purchases got so much worse over the years? I recently placed an order for four diverse items from Wayfair, only to find that's four different deliveries, four times I need to be home. Three of those deliveries have now happened, but only one of them was at the time I'd been told (and that only because I checked this morning and saw delivery had been brought forward from tomorrow as they previously told me). The first one wasn't even the same day they'd said! Contrast that to the impressive efficiency of Argos back in 2005 (when I ordered lots of stuff after moving house).

[redsturgeon]

Talking of which, I want a new office chair, but I really want to sit in it before buying. Once upon a long time ago I could go into Staples and do that; nowadays it's all online, so pure pot-luck whether I can get anything comfortable

I can recommend one of these
https://www.hermanmiller.com/en_gb/prod ... on-chairs/

Over £1,000 new but we have two of them and would not use anything else.

About £300 on eBay second hand and I can forsee a glut of them available shortly.

John

[stockton]

and small independents, or even small chains etc cannot compete with the buying power of Tesco.

One important factor in the demise of the high street which seems to be regularly overlooked is the propensity of British traders to offer very large discounts for quantity. In many other countries, requesting such discounts would simply be regarded as insulting.

If large retailers receive massive discounts that simply puts the smaller retailers out of business and I am not clear that this even benefits the suppliers in the long run, for subsequently they have to deal with oligopolistic purchasers.

A typical example happened to me the other day when I went to buy some binoculars. Having decided more or less what I wanted, I went to the "local" shop and offered about 10% over the internet price. "No way. I dont get that sort of discount." was the response.
So I ended up buying online despite not wanting to do so.

[UncleEbenezer]

Talking of which, I want a new office chair, but I really want to sit in it before buying. Once upon a long time ago I could go into Staples and do that; nowadays it's all online, so pure pot-luck whether I can get anything comfortable

I can recommend one of these
https://www.hermanmiller.com/en_gb/prod ... on-chairs/

Over £1,000 new but we have two of them and would not use anything else.

About £300 on eBay second hand and I can forsee a glut of them available shortly.

John

Good for you. If I had the opportunity to try one, I'd happily do so. But I'm reluctant to spend £100, let alone £1000, on any chair without trying it first - not least because I know I'm not an entirely standard shape.

[AF62]

Many are being put off not only by the ever-increasing parking charges but also by the strict traffic warden 'policing' with hefty 'fines' should you transgress one of the myriad parking rules.

Even during this corvid stay-at-home quiet period, the wardens are all on duty waiting to pounce.

Just one 'fine' pays Amazon Prime free delivery for a year.

Fortunately where I live parking has not been decriminalisation and is still the responsibility of the police and not council employed enforcement wardens (with their performance measured by home many tickets they issue).

The police have better things to do so unless you are actually blocking the road then the chance of getting a ticket is zero.

[redsturgeon]

Talking of which, I want a new office chair, but I really want to sit in it before buying. Once upon a long time ago I could go into Staples and do that; nowadays it's all online, so pure pot-luck whether I can get anything comfortable

I can recommend one of these
https://www.hermanmiller.com/en_gb/prod ... on-chairs/

Over £1,000 new but we have two of them and would not use anything else.

About £300 on eBay second hand and I can forsee a glut of them available shortly.

John

Good for you. If I had the opportunity to try one, I'd happily do so. But I'm reluctant to spend £100, let alone £1000, on any chair without trying it first - not least because I know I'm not an entirely standard shape.

They are the best and the good thing is they have lots of adjustments, they even come in different sizes. Last for ever, and lots of spare parts available if anything does break.

From the late great Terry Pratchett

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

[UncleEbenezer]

Good for you. If I had the opportunity to try one, I'd happily do so. But I'm reluctant to spend £100, let alone £1000, on any chair without trying it first - not least because I know I'm not an entirely standard shape.

They are the best and the good thing is they have lots of adjustments, they even come in different sizes. Last for ever, and lots of spare parts available if anything does break.

Um, methinks I hear a whooshing.

None of that is any use if it doesn't agree with my back.

Oh, and I wouldn't buy boots without trying them on, either. But that's a non-story: shops where I can try and buy boots still exist. Indeed, there's an outdoor-stuff shop in our high street where I bought new boots back in the autumn.

[brightncheerful]

and small independents, or even small chains etc cannot compete with the buying power of Tesco.

One important factor in the demise of the high street which seems to be regularly overlooked is the propensity of British traders to offer very large discounts for quantity. In many other countries, requesting such discounts would simply be regarded as insulting. If large retailers receive massive discounts that simply puts the smaller retailers out of business and I am not clear that this even benefits the suppliers in the long run, for subsequently they have to deal with oligopolistic purchasers. A typical example happened to me the other day when I went to buy some binoculars. Having decided more or less what I wanted, I went to the "local" shop and offered about 10% over the internet price. "No way. I dont get that sort of discount." was the response. So I ended up buying online despite not wanting to do so.

I'm not sure if I've understood what you're saying. An internet seller's price wouldn't necessarily be lower because of discount from the seller's source but that the price that the seller can afford to charge is lower than the local shop because the on-line seller doesn't have the same overheads as the shop.

For a shop to make a profit, the selling price needs to exceed the total cost to the shop of selling the item.. The total costs include total property costs (rent, rates, insurance, etc), staff and other overheads, interest on bank loan, commission to the card provider when you pay with a card, etc, etc. Generally, shops have a percentage mark-up that covers all their costs and includes the profit element. An internet seller would also have costs but likely don't amount to as much.

With shop sold stuff, the cost to the shop of buying from the wholesaler or supplier will vary depending upon the value of the order to the supplier or wholesaler. For example, a local trader with 1 shop might get 40% discount on an item, whereas a multiple retailer with dozens of branches might get 60% and with hundreds of branches perhaps 75%. And multiple retailers enjoy economy of scale so the costs of selling each item would also be lower than 1 shop. The only two things that prevent a local trader from buying in sufficient bulk to get max discount is insufficient capital and somewhere to store the stock until it's resold. I have a client who used to have about 45 shops. When he sold up, he kept one shop to give himself something to do. Having been a multiple retailer he ran the one shop as if it were one amongst 45. Customers flocked because his prices couldn't be beaten. By the time he sold that shop, the turnover and profit had soared.

As for local shops giving discounts to their customers, I would think that if you wanted to buy a case of binoculars (say 6 or 12) then you could've got a discount. But whether the net price would have been lower than what you paid on-line depends.

---

At the health food shop I go to, I have a regular order for an item. for which I get 10% discount of the shop's usual selling price. I should think the shop gets 60% from their suppliers because the value of my order (along with numerous other customers' regular orders) increases the amount the shop can spend on its order from the supplier; the higher the value of the order to the supplier the more the discount to the shop. A legacy from when Mrs Bnc and in my spare time we had a small shop is that from one of the suppliers I still get 20% discount when I buy direct. I'm sure I wouldn't have managed to get any discount on my £30 purchase every so often had it not been for our past custom.

[stockton]

The point I am making is that the level of quantity discount which is regarded as normal in a country appears to be a matter of culture rather than anything else, and that this has a substantial effect on the structure of retail markets in different countries. If large discounts are the norm there will be relatively few retail outlets, whereas if such discounts are small there will be a much greater variety of retail outlets.
The figures which you quote, and which I assume are regarded as the norm, suggest that small shops in the UK would have disappeared quite independently of rates and rents, simply because it is almost impossible to compete with a competitor whose cost of supplies is half your own.

Fortunately it does appear that in many other countries such discounts are regarded as ridiculous and those countries consequently maintain a much more varied high street.

[redsturgeon]

If I am a supplier it makes perfect sense to offer discounts to larger purchasers. If I ship a pallet load of 1000 items to one location I can clearly offer a better price to a customer than if I ship 10 items to 100 locations. Simple economy of scale and I don't see any way around that.

When I worked in the retail side of things I would sometimes get small customers calling and complaining that a large national retailer could get a better price than they could and I was discriminating against them. My response was, "if you order X quantity to be delivered to one address then you too can get a better discount."

John

[AF62]

Fortunately it does appear that in many other countries such discounts are regarded as ridiculous and those countries consequently maintain a much more varied high street.

So it is acceptable that consumers are over-charged for the items they need to buy to cover the additional costs that small shopkeepers have?

I choose Amazon (and not only are their prices cheaper, but their customer service puts many small shops to shame).

[Wuffle]

AF62,

From a logistics industry professional, at least be aware that some of the ways Amazon works aren't very nice.
It isn't all sprinkled with fairy dust.

W.

[AF62]

From a logistics industry professional, at least be aware that some of the ways Amazon works aren't very nice.
It isn't all sprinkled with fairy dust.

I am sure that many retailers dealings with suppliers and employees "aren't very nice".

So do I pick a retailer that isn't very nice and charges me more and gives me poor customer service, or a retailer that isn't very nice but charges low prices and gives me good customer service.

Not a hard choice.

[JohnB]

Fundamentally you need to consider why you might pay higher prices to a small shop. It might be speed of access, their advice, the convenience of a short trip to prod it, it might be because you want to have a stronger local economy with more jobs.

But I find internet shopping to be faster, involve less travel, and more advice with all those reviews from people who've already prodded it. So that leaves supporting local jobs. But that smacks of protectionism, and I think a more efficient economy benefits all, as we all have more money to buy more things, just as globalisation and specialisation helps all.

The bulk discount argument can be turned on its head on the internet. You can get a bloke with a very narrow range ordering in great bulk a product which is excellent but obscure. Amazon marketplace finds them for me and I don't care if the company is a one-trick pony.

I'd be happy if local shops died and I had more money in my pocket to spend on local cafes and pub that took over the sites.

[stockton]

If I am a supplier it makes perfect sense to offer discounts to larger purchasers. If I ship a pallet load of 1000 items to one location I can clearly offer a better price to a customer than if I ship 10 items to 100 locations.

You can offer discounts, but you need to consider a number of factors before doing so.
One factor is the market in which you wish to operate in the future. If you go down the discount route you may well find that you end up dependent on a few large customers and eventually it is they who decide how much money you will be permitted to make. The greater presence of family businesses outside the UK probably ensures this factor is more readily taken into consideration elsewhere.
Another factor is how you allocate your costs and calculate the discount that you are prepared to offer. I suspect that in the UK the discount offered frequently has more to do with a salesmans wish to obtain the order than any particular calculation.

[stockton]

So it is acceptable that consumers are over-charged for the items they need to buy to cover the additional costs that small shopkeepers have?
I choose Amazon (and not only are their prices cheaper, but their customer service puts many small shops to shame).

You will need to define "over-charged" before I can comment on the first sentence. I find that being able to examine items before purchase provides me with a considerable saving in time and effort.
As to Amazon, my experience is that they are very reliable and I cannot understand how Argos in particular have not managed to set themselves up as a serious competitor to Amazon.

[AF62]

So it is acceptable that consumers are over-charged for the items they need to buy to cover the additional costs that small shopkeepers have?
I choose Amazon (and not only are their prices cheaper, but their customer service puts many small shops to shame).

You will need to define "over-charged" before I can comment on the first sentence. I find that being able to examine items before purchase provides me with a considerable saving in time and effort.

Overcharged - paid more than I needed to as someone else was offering the same item for less.

For example local garden centres wanted to charge £100 more for an item I wanted to buy than an online company would charge for the identical item with the same delivery times. They were overcharging by £100.

[Dod101]

So it is acceptable that consumers are over-charged for the items they need to buy to cover the additional costs that small shopkeepers have?
I choose Amazon (and not only are their prices cheaper, but their customer service puts many small shops to shame).

You will need to define "over-charged" before I can comment on the first sentence. I find that being able to examine items before purchase provides me with a considerable saving in time and effort.

Overcharged - paid more than I needed to as someone else was offering the same item for less.

For example local garden centres wanted to charge £100 more for an item I wanted to buy than an online company would charge for the identical item with the same delivery times. They were overcharging by £100.

The cheapest price is not necessarily the best value.

Dod