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Post by Moose on Apr 26, 2016 22:22:27 GMT
BHS is the latest British retail casualty, in liquidation and closing very soon. Whilst the selfish part of me is happily going over their website looking for bargains I do worry about how many companies are going under. Our local high street is pretty much empty - nothing but charity shops and pawn shops/places where you can sell gold etc. No-one seems to want to invest here and no-one has the money to start new businesses.
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Post by tangent on Apr 26, 2016 22:33:16 GMT
I think it's the same throughout the country, or at least the North West.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Apr 27, 2016 9:13:42 GMT
It's a sign of the way retailing is progressing. One one hand most of us shop for bargains and large expenditure items on line. On the other hand the large supermarket chains offer a wide variety of the everyday goods we need at low prices and under one roof, with the added bonus of good free parking.
As consumers, that's what we have decided we want.
Niche market shops and the ubiquitous coffee shops do well and therein lies the problem that BHS and Austin Read have faced. Both BHS and Austin Read have lost sight of their target market. They failed to 'pitch' to a targeted consumer. Instead they offered a mid-range, unfocused, collection, targeted at nobody in particular. On the one hand Primark scooped the traditional 'bargain basement' BHS customer with a better range and lower prices. On the other hand Debenhams and M&S have taken Austin Read's mid-range suit buying male customers. Frankly Argos stole the BHS home furnishing range without a fight, they stole it on price alone. I can buy a better shirt ( and do ) in Asda for £6.00 than I can in BHS for £15.00. I can buy a great quality dress shirt in Primark for £10.00, Austin Read haven't got a dress shirt for under £25.00 and they are poorer quality.
I'm not sorry to see BHS and Austin Read go to the wall ( at least in BHS's case it will stop crimplene and acrylic becoming endangered species).
The others I've mentioned ( Primark, Debenhams and Argos ) are strong and ASDA, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Aldi and Liddl are meeting the needs of the high street consumer. With on-line retail we no longer need lots of little shops to sell average range products. Coffee shops, bistro eating and 'click-and-collect' outlets are thriving.
BHS and Austin Read along with Woolworth's were just dinosaurs that have gone the way of the milk float and the local tobacconists.
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Post by JoeP on Apr 27, 2016 11:23:34 GMT
There's a milk float that serves our street.
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Post by tangent on Apr 27, 2016 14:58:38 GMT
I thought milk floats had died out, I haven't seen one for years.
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Post by Moose on Apr 27, 2016 22:07:06 GMT
I have not seen a milk float in years either and the last time I saw milk in a glass bottle was nearly 15 years ago. I can understand that companies like BHS are being undercut by other, cheaper retailers. On a selfish level though we don't have those here (that said we didn't have BHS in Whitehaven either I suppose). I've never even heard of Austin Reid.
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Post by juju on Apr 28, 2016 6:27:39 GMT
I didn't know about Austin Reid. But I haven't bought anything from a BHS for years - as Alan says, why would you spend more when you can get it elsewhere for less? That kind of general department store is unnecessary now.
And as for milkmen, we used to have one about 15 years ago, but he would get to us so late that we had usually left for work. The milk would sit outside till I got back at lunchtime and go off really quickly, so we stopped having him.
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Post by Miisa on Apr 28, 2016 12:11:11 GMT
Joe got up on Monday to drive me to the station at what in the UK is an ungodly hour and there it was, a milk float.
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Post by Mari on Apr 28, 2016 12:24:40 GMT
Milk in bottles is making a comeback here in the Netherlands in bio shops. Bring your own jar-shops are getting bigger too.
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Post by Sarah W. on Apr 28, 2016 14:38:23 GMT
What on earth is a milk float? *Goes off to google it*
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Post by Sarah W. on Apr 28, 2016 14:42:13 GMT
Huh. I don't think we have a specific word for a milk delivery vehicle. And they are all but extinct.
Here a float is either something in a parade or a kind of dessert made by floating ice cream in some kind of liquid, usually root beer, thus a root beer float. So, "milk float" conjured up a strange image.
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Post by JoeP on Apr 28, 2016 15:12:07 GMT
Ha We have ice cream floats but that means what you described. I don't why ice cream vehicles are ice cream vans and milk delivery vehicles are floats.
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Post by Miisa on Apr 28, 2016 17:02:27 GMT
Maybe it's the open and low-floor design that helps the milkman get bottles in and out of it on either side, rather than a closed van?
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Post by tangent on Apr 28, 2016 21:18:39 GMT
They are normally electric vehicles and as such, they float around (at least, more than diesel vans).
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 30, 2016 14:20:21 GMT
But I haven't bought anything from a BHS for years - as Alan says, why would you spend more when you can get it elsewhere for less? That kind of general department store is unnecessary now. Which, here in the US, is what fuels Wal*Mart....very low prices compared to their competitors. Wal*Mart suppresses their employee wages by hiring primarily part-time employees at low wages and few or no benefits (they also abuse labor laws to effectively pay sub-minimum wages). They utilize bulk purchasing to undercut competition, run the neighboring small businesses out of business, with the intent of establishing a veritable retail dominance, if not monopoly, in the vicinity of their stores. Because they pay their employees so miserably, large proportions of those employees are on public assistance, be it housing assistance, food stamps, and welfare assistance...a 'no exit' strategy to keep large numbers of Americans impoverished and forced to buy at Wal*Mart because it is the only place they can afford, or even shop, on their suppressed Wal*mart wages. I'll spend more at a specialty hardware store because I know it will help keep it in business. I will shop almost anywhere else other than Wal*Mart, even though Wal*Mart prices are lower ("when you can get it...for less?") because 'getting if for less' is palpably destroying my community. If you follow this guide of 'not spending more when you can get it for less', you will drive your community into the shithole, too. That's why. The 'milk truck' from my youth. We, like most Americans of the time, had an insulated box on the porch, or wherever the milk products were delivered, to protect the delivered goods until they could be refrigerated. Here: Of course, the paradigm of that time was that 'mother stayed at home with the younger children', so there was usually somebody present early to mid-morning to move the delivered milk products to the active refrigeration unit inside.
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Post by Mari on Apr 30, 2016 15:43:51 GMT
In my town they are actively keeping out chain stores. Because of that we have a lot of unique stores which in turn draws tourists. Of course there are chain stores present in Zutphen, but their shops aren't big enough to pack a lot of different things.
Very big chains are toppling over here as well. But as someone remarked: these are mostly the stores that had an unfocused target audience. One of our most expensive chainstores is thriving and so are a lot of cheap ones. Only those that can't make up their minds are going under. Still, recently one of the most well-known stores went bankrupt. That was a shock.
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Post by juju on Apr 30, 2016 15:44:14 GMT
BHS is/was not a 'neighbourhood small business', WG. They were a huge chain of retail department stores that unfortunately ceased to compete with competitors because their brand was seen as old fashioned and overpriced.
You could buy the same generic stuff in there as elsewhere, and it was likely to have come from the same source. I don't know what they paid their employees but I doubt it was more than the minimum wage for retail staff, same as anywhere.
I have every sympathy for individual high street retailers who go to the wall because they can't compete. BHS? Nah.
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 30, 2016 15:47:14 GMT
From a goog, a 'milk float'.... This particular one with the Stig at the wheel....
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 30, 2016 17:59:22 GMT
BHS is/was not a 'neighbourhood small business', WG. They were a huge chain of retail department stores that unfortunately ceased to compete with competitors because their brand was seen as old fashioned and overpriced. You could buy the same generic stuff in there as elsewhere, and it was likely to have come from the same source. I don't know what they paid their employees but I doubt it was more than the minimum wage for retail staff, same as anywhere. I have every sympathy for individual high street retailers who go to the wall because they can't compete. BHS? Nah. Yeah...Here we have had periodic 'conglomerations' or 'acquisitions' by other corporate entities. Sometimes it has been such a flurry of money that I entirely miss what happened. Names and trademarks go under and the marketing juggernauts expand and grow, usually by stripping assets from other acquisitions. IIRC, Marx described the process in agonizing detail in his potboiler Das Kapital. I don't even know if 'box stores' are still a thing in retail marketing. Everything I hear is 'Amazon Prime'.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Apr 30, 2016 19:47:58 GMT
Wal*Mart trade here as ASDA. Actually none of the "Big Four" ( ASDA, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury's) are candidates for a bad employers award. There are more safeguards under British law for a start.
They have to pay the "Living Wage" ( currently £7.20 per hour and due to rise to £9.00 by 2020 ) You can claim benefits and work for them provided you don't exceed 16 hours per week or £120.00 per week and not have your benefits impacted. They offer generous employee discounts on all products except tobacco products. They are not permitted a monopoly of any one trading area.
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Post by Moose on Apr 30, 2016 22:05:12 GMT
I know that Tesco have a reputation as a good employer - Aldi do too, even though they are not, as yet, ranked among the big four. I don't know much about Asda. We have a small Asda here but I rarely go there, even though it's nearer than some of the others. Doesn't seem to stock very much.
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Post by whollygoats on Apr 30, 2016 22:37:03 GMT
Here the retailer to work for is Costco, the 'warehouse' bulk retailer. Really...Wal*Mart in the US is predatory.
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Post by Sarah W. on May 3, 2016 15:37:59 GMT
...hiring primarily part-time employees at low wages and few or no benefits (they also abuse labor laws to effectively pay sub-minimum wages). To clarify for a UK audience, US benefits in this context are things like paid time off and health/dental insurance.
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Post by Moose on May 7, 2016 0:49:37 GMT
Heh yes I gathered . Minimum wage is a lot lower there than here isn't it? Though I gather that the cost of living is also lower.
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Post by Christy on May 13, 2016 3:34:51 GMT
Currently, 7.20 GBP = 10.39 USD.
Our minimum wage is $7.25/hr. Sam was making $7.75 at his old part time job, and was restricted to less than 30 hours per week because the government now forces businesses to pay for benefits for employees who work more than that (or a stiff penalty if they don't), and that company doesn't want to pay benefits to anyone but managers. Their response to Obamacare was predictable; they cut hours so that they didn't have to.
His new job is full time (= benefits) at $8.50/, with a $1 raise in 90 days. For unskilled labor with a new employer, this is considered fair, but not fantastic. I make $12.90, and am underpaid for the work I do. Between the two of us, though, we might work our way up to bring able to save for retirement. That's coming along too quickly for me, as I'm nearly 40 and just now graduating with a university degree next year.
Cost of living might well be lower. I was able to use my tax refund check to buy a previously-repossessed house for $30,000 under tax value and for only four times the amount of my yearly salary. However, I am still well under poverty level; my kids are on Medicaid and we're on foodstamps (EBT, these days) because the household income level "should" be double what it is.
By that I take it to mean that the government wants to give me foodstamps until the household income is above poverty level for two adults and two kids. If that's around $54,000/year, that's 37,405.80 in GBP.
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Post by juju on May 13, 2016 13:46:58 GMT
What are property prices like? Apparently the average here is about £190,000 which is about 273,000 USD. Obviously that varies by area (ours is lower and London is much much higher) but house prices on the whole are really bad here and many young people will never own their own home.
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Post by whollygoats on May 13, 2016 15:30:24 GMT
What are property prices like? Apparently the average here is about £190,000 which is about 273,000 USD. Obviously that varies by area (ours is lower and London is much much higher) but house prices on the whole are really bad here and many young people will never own their own home. It depends upon where you live. I live in a major metropolitan area where there is an urban growth boundary. This means that because it is a popular place to move that more demand inflates real estate properties beyond what the 'average person' can afford. My city is one of the most expensive housing markets in the US. My little three bed, two bath bungalow in the inner city is valued on the property tax rolls at above $400,000 and would probably sell on the market for a fair piece more than that (an adjoining property recently sold for over $700,000 just last year). The real estate market here is nuts. But, go to Olympia, Washington, 150 miles north, an equivalent home can be had for under $200,000. I imagine that a city lot in Flint, Michigan, could probably be had for a song.
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Post by Moose on May 13, 2016 16:20:47 GMT
nearly 40K a year would be considered an excellent salary here - certainly not poverty level
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Post by Mari on May 13, 2016 18:09:53 GMT
House prices were ridiculous here as well until a few years ago when all the prices toppled. My parents' house's value was halved. It didn't matter to them since they bought it before the boom, but still. I couldn't have bought my home if it hadn't. I paid 125000 euros for it. That's about 4 times my salary. I earn pretty good wages though. Renting prices in the private sector are still through the roof though. My previous place was more expensive than my current one, even though my house is at least 3 times bigger than the room I rented (and 100 times more comfortable!!!).
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Post by Moose on May 13, 2016 23:39:38 GMT
As stated previously it makes a huge difference where you live. I don't understand how anyone but the very very rich and the very very poor manage to live in London - the latter in hell hole tenements. The London commuter belt is pretty pricy too. Of course, some wages there are a good deal higher than in other parts of the country - my brother and sister, for instance, both earn a good deal more (in the case of my brother a VERY good deal more) in London than they could here. But people like teachers and nurses must really suffer. There is a small London supplement but nowhere near enough to make up the difference.
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