The Death of the English High Street

[seafoid]

England is really banjaxed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/06/thomas-cook-uk-jobs-travel-agencies

Thomas Cook cuts 2,500 UK jobs and shuts 195 high street travel agencies
Cuts at world's oldest travel firm come as bed company Dreams loses 400 staff and 300 jobs go at Axminster Carpets


The north of England is getting the worst of it.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ed6a985c-70bd-11e2-85d0-00144feab49a.html

[Shamrock Shore]

I was reading about this very topic in a book I bought on Amazon.......

[Eamonnca1]

Travel agents? Do people still use them? Why? Last time I used one was about 12 years ago.

[johnneycool]

Travel agents? Do people still use them? Why? Last time I used one was about 12 years ago.

They still let you pay off your holiday in installments I was told once when I asked the same question.

[seafoid]

I was reading about this very topic in a book I bought on Amazon.......

I think I'll skip amazon in future. It doesn't sound like a decent place to work.
Kennys.ie has a great selection and they may eventually sponsor the Galway footballers like

[Eamonnca1]

Travel agents? Do people still use them? Why? Last time I used one was about 12 years ago.

They still let you pay off your holiday in installments I was told once when I asked the same question.

I see.

How about video rental stores?  Why are people still using them? The selection on Netflix isn't all that great compared to a few years ago but I'd still find it an awful hassle now to wait for DVDs to arrive in the post, and I certainly wouldn't bother going to a store to pick one up.  Moving physical disks around is a very inefficient way to move 1s and 0s.

As for Xtra Vision, they should have gotten into the online streaming business.

[Eamonnca1]

Oh and speaking of the thread title, I love the use of the singular definite article "the" when referring to English high streets.  It's entirely appropriate, because every major English town high street is identical to the next, at least it was when I lived there.  Boot's chemists, Argos, Dixon's, McDonald's, Burger King, Mark's & Spencer, Woolworths - not a bit of variety to be had.  Made me nostalgic for the old days of shopping in Lurgan where you'd go clothes shopping in a dozen wee family-owned stores instead of picking everything up in one place at M&S.

[cadence]

Oh and speaking of the thread title, I love the use of the singular definite article "the" when referring to English high streets.  It's entirely appropriate, because every major English town high street is identical to the next, at least it was when I lived there.  Boot's chemists, Argos, Dixon's, McDonald's, Burger King, Mark's & Spencer, Woolworths - not a bit of variety to be had.  Made me nostalgic for the old days of shopping in Lurgan where you'd go clothes shopping in a dozen wee family-owned stores instead of picking everything up in one place at M&S.

where i live had some bigger retail companies on the high street, but in the main there were small businesses. these were really hit during the crisis and worse again because of the austerity measures. we still have empty retail spaces. where there's been a real change is the springing up of 99p shops, pondland, bargainland is a new one, just shops selling plastic containers/boxes and cheap stuff. i honestly don't know how these shops can survive as there's 5 of them on a fairly small high street. the biggest killer to local shops has been the aldi. we've lost a butcher's and a friut and veg shop since they've opened. the co-op is on the way out too. it has to be because it doesn't have enough customers to keep it afloat, they're all in aldi. sign of the times.

[Eamonnca1]

where i live had some bigger retail companies on the high street, but in the main there were small businesses. these were really hit during the crisis and worse again because of the austerity measures. we still have empty retail spaces. where there's been a real change is the springing up of 99p shops, pondland, bargainland is a new one, just shops selling plastic containers/boxes and cheap stuff. i honestly don't know how these shops can survive as there's 5 of them on a fairly small high street. the biggest killer to local shops has been the aldi. we've lost a butcher's and a friut and veg shop since they've opened. the co-op is on the way out too. it has to be because it doesn't have enough customers to keep it afloat, they're all in aldi. sign of the times.

Yup. Have to give kudos to Alex Attwood for blocking the John Lewis development at Sprucefield. That would have been the death knell for traders in the middle of Lisburn, and not a single net extra job would have been created.

[seafoid]

Oh and speaking of the thread title, I love the use of the singular definite article "the" when referring to English high streets.  It's entirely appropriate, because every major English town high street is identical to the next, at least it was when I lived there.  Boot's chemists, Argos, Dixon's, McDonald's, Burger King, Mark's & Spencer, Woolworths - not a bit of variety to be had.  Made me nostalgic for the old days of shopping in Lurgan where you'd go clothes shopping in a dozen wee family-owned stores instead of picking everything up in one place at M&S.

That was the thing that really struck me when I was living in England. You might see a jumper in the window of Next in Liverpool and if you went to Bristol the following week you'd see the same chain, the same window , the same jumper. And all the shops were chain shops. 

This wonderful world of purchase power

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gavcjNniIvk

[rosnarun]

most of the companies that are being discussed here are closing due to changing  fads and fashion rather than the recession.
record shops dvd rental travel agents are becoming as antiquated as Coopers and Blacksmith and all part of a normal economic cycle for better or worse.

[T Fearon]

EamonnCA, O'Hare's William St, Lurgan clothed me up to the age of 20!

[quit yo jibbajabba]

EamonnCA, O'Hare's William St, Lurgan clothed me up to the age of 20!

Where'd you go after that - Jacamo?!