Thursday, July 8, 2010
Every little helps to kill our town centre!...
Has the world gone absolutely mad?! First the big super market giants like Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury's start selling cheap best seller books and car insurance and now Amazon, who have already turned one traditional market (books) on its head, want to sell groceries online. The internet retailer, who already has a turnover of over £16 billion (yes billion) wants even more, it wants its share of the food market. Amazon is no longer content with just selling books, electricals, toys, white goods and cosmetics it now wants to sell washing powder and tinned beans along with around 22,000 other food and grocery lines. How much extra dosh does it hope to make out of this expansion venture? No one seems quite sure, although if Ocado, the Waitrose inspired online business, is anything to go by they ought to be making a profit in around nine or ten years time! In the meantime probably quite a few small retailers will have gone out of business due to their, almost certainly, fierce price competition. What chance for the small independent grocers? Certainly no chance on price; so that only leaves convenience and service; but I've a sneaky feeling that shoppers will always, in the end, vote with their pockets. If the book market is anything to go by, and I'm sure it is, small independents cannot even buy wholesale what Amazon sell at retail in most cases. That makes life very tricky if you want to compete on price. Having said that surely service, a sense of community and convenience is more important than saving a few quid here and there. Will we see the day when there are no High Street shops left at all, when we all sit at home in front of a computer, on our ever-plumper arses, browsing fewer and fewer, larger and larger online retailers like amazon and Tesco Online who have taken oever the known world. That's if the Chinese business giants haven't muscled their way in by then! Is this what we all want? No bakeries, no local butchers, no fish mongers? No book shops? No stationers, not even clothes shops? Because that is the way it seems to be going from where I'm sitting on this bright Thursday morning in Tonbridge town centre. People of Tonbridge: it is in your own hands; get out to those farmers markets, green grocers and butchers. Don't buy everything online go into town instead, it's much more fun and you actually get to talk to real people, you might even see someone you know....
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7 comments:
Try buying a small item like a radio in Tonbridge! Tell me where? Ok so it had to be a DAB.
This is the problem with many item: online shopping gives a choice not seen locally. I gave up visiting local supermarkets a few years back. Do I miss the blocked aisles, the queues, the parking and shoppers that insist on putting their offspring in the trollies complete with dirty shoes? In 3 years I have had less than a handfull of problems with the quality and service from my online retailer - no contest.
Robert Dyas, Sainsbury's and probably Waitrose. Not very far afield you'd have a large choice of Curry's, Comet, PC World etc at Longfield Rd, North Farm Estate. All I'm saying is that, if everyone shops as you are shopping, there will eventually be no community shops left. If you're happy with that then carry on but remember that you'll have a hand in its demise. Can you live with that?!..
Example: I'm thinking of buying a mini fridge for my small broom cupboard of a kitchen area in my shop. I could take measurements and look at pictures online, as indeed I have, but I'm going to go along to actually look at some in a real shop as I think that is the only way to really examine a product. See the colour, examine the interior, check the shelf, open and close the door to see how the handle works, maybe try it out. You can't do any of this if you buy online. Also the fact that I'm making the effort to do this will put money, my money, back where it belongs: in the local economy. It may only be fifty or a hundred quid but, when you add up all the other similar amounts from all of the potential shoppers of Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells that's alot of money which could just go out of the area all together, which, in other times not so long ago, would virtually all have been spent locally....
What happens if you don't drive - there currently aren't any buses direct to the North Farm industrial estate - so you can't easily browse the shops there. Also, if you do drive - with the clogged up A21 it takes ages to get to some of these shops.
Anyone know what's happened to flower shop nxt to station? Looks like it's just been abandoned.
Tonbridge Resident: yes I know what you mean about the buses from the North Farm. You'd think that, given the number of young people who want to go to the bowling alley and cinema and people who want to shop there, that they'd lay some on wouldn't you....
Anon: There is a long history of business coming and going on that little row of shops on the railway bridge so I'm not all together surprised. Flowers are a bit of a luxury for many at the moment I guess. Maybe the lease ran out and they decided to call it a day. The trouble with that location is that there's nowhere to stop and most people are in a hurry when they're passing either to get into the town or to the station or from it to get home. Also there is a flower stall on the station platform I believe which takes care of the impulse, flowers for the missus, purchase when you get off the train....
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