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A while back, in an item entitled e-Rage I bemoaned the loss of small, independent shops. So I was interested to see today via the BBC website that:
Small and independent shops may vanish from the UK’s High Streets by as soon as 2015, politicians have warned.
Corner shops are being squeezed out of the market by supermarkets and large rivals, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Small Shops said.
Are they joking? Have you taken a wander down your local high street recently? I am trying to remember the name of any small, privately owned, independent shops in my local centre….. No. Don’t recall any. They’ve all gone.
(The picture by the way was sent by an old school friend who found it in a 1960’s ‘Essex Countryside and it shows the corner shop where our family bought all their groceries. Once.)
Same thing (unfortunately) in the U.S., Andy. The giants (i.e., Wal-Mart and Target) are running “the little guys” out of business. It’s not that I don’t like Wal-Mart, and I do shop there frequently…but it’s big, crowded, impersonal and sooo homogenized….no flavor, no charm….pity.
Hi Jansy
This may surprise you – and many will disagree – but my experience of shopping areas in the States is that the small shop still thrives. Maybe not in the glitzy malls and no – not next door to a Wal-Mart – but I’ve been in many small towns where the main street is filled with independent, small shopkeepers. This has always impressed me. The same – to a lesser degree – with major cities.
This past week my wife wanted some wool. Just ordinary knitting wool. We live close to a small city so we travelled in. There is not one shop that sells wool except for a department store that sells a little. Needless to say, they didn’t have what she wanted and the selection even I could see was poor.
I’ll take bets that if I went shopping in , say, Morristown, New Jersey, I could find some wool to buy.
Shucks, Andy…what kind of wool does she want? I’ve got a great craft store right down the street from me – has a huge knitting/crochet department!
LOL