If lots of high street shops go out of business.....

sb44

If, for instance lots of high street shoe shop chains go out of business, we are going to be left with somewhere like Tesco and Asda to buy our shoes from. Not a lot of choice there is there?

Now I am talking your average man/woman in the street here, the ones which earn the 'real' average wage of about 14K, not the one that the government tells us is average. We are talking about prices that the majority can afford to pay not the high flyers who spend hundreds on a pair.

Shoes are just one example.

Do we expect to see a narrowing down of choice for certain items?

beingjdc

I pay £29.50 for my shoes, from M&S.

But I'm pretty sure the average full-time wage is more than £14k. Even when I worked in a call centre (2000-2001) and a shop (2001-2003) I got slightly more than that! That's £6.40 an hour for a 42-hour week.

Sapphire

sb44 wrote: »

If, for instance lots of high street shoe shop chains go out of business, we are going to be left with somewhere like Tesco and Asda to buy our shoes from. Not a lot of choice there is there?

Now I am talking your average man/woman in the street here, the ones which earn the 'real' average wage of about 14K, not the one that the government tells us is average. We are talking about prices that the majority can afford to pay not the high flyers who spend hundreds on a pair.

Shoes are just one example.

Do we expect to see a narrowing down of choice for certain items?

There's almost certain to be a narrowing down of choice for most items, I would think. One of the reasons why so many retailers are closing/will close is because there is too much choice at present, all geared to the 'boom' economy, where people were borrowing billions to spend on fripperies.

The weakest at the top and bottom ends of the market will be weeded out, and the strongest will survive, until we have a more realistic and stable kind of economic system (hopefully).

HenryWeston

beingjdc wrote: »

But I'm pretty sure the average full-time wage is more than £14k

The average wage here in Herefordshire is £14,000, average house price around 10 x that!:eek:

WTF?_2

sb44 wrote: »

If, for instance lots of high street shoe shop chains go out of business, we are going to be left with somewhere like Tesco and Asda to buy our shoes from. Not a lot of choice there is there?

Now I am talking your average man/woman in the street here, the ones which earn the 'real' average wage of about 14K, not the one that the government tells us is average. We are talking about prices that the majority can afford to pay not the high flyers who spend hundreds on a pair.

Shoes are just one example.

Do we expect to see a narrowing down of choice for certain items?

Expect to see a narrowing down in choice for most items in the coming year.

World trade is drying up - shipping costs have fallen through the floor such is the lack of demand. That means much less imported stuff around plus with the carnage on the high street the survivors - most likely the supermarket chains - will be capitalising by upping their margins and that includes cutting the number of products offered.

Don't believe the hype of price deflation bringing a world of super-cheap bargains. What we are seeing now is vendors desperately liquidating stock for cold hard cash. When the time comes to restock the imported goods, prices are as likely to go up as down thanks to much weaker sterling and supply side destruction. I'd imagine that we'll see a lot of firms go to the wall after the Xmas sales bonanza as the market gets very, very difficult indeed.

My advice is get your big ticket purchases in now. I must have spent about 3k in the last month on luxury type goods which I know will be getting more scarce and more expensive shortly. As it was I was able to make some very nice savings on this stock despite the huge recent drops in Sterling.

Sapphire

!!!!!!? wrote: »

My advice is get your big ticket purchases in now. I must have spent about 3k in the last month on luxury type goods which I know will be getting more scarce and more expensive shortly. As it was I was able to make some very nice savings on this stock despite the huge recent drops in Sterling.

Funnily enough, that is exactly what I have done. Hopefully, when the depression really hits, I'll be relatively snug and secure.

I will probably need to live off my savings at some point, though, since I doubt much of my industry will survive – not good that the 'government' does nothing to help those with very hard-earned savings, who have not contributed to the economic crash. :cool:

Zelie

beingjdc wrote: »

I pay £29.50 for my shoes, from M&S.

But I'm pretty sure the average full-time wage is more than £14k. Even when I worked in a call centre (2000-2001) and a shop (2001-2003) I got slightly more than that! That's £6.40 an hour for a 42-hour week.

I think what sb44 is trying to say is that the stated national average is generally a fair bit higher than most people ever see. There are a small number of people earning huge wages and a large number of people earning very small wages. If you discount the former group (who are unlikely ever to struggle to buy a pair of shoes) then 'average' salaries are much lower.

WTF?_2

Sapphire wrote: »

Funnily enough, that is exactly what I have done. Hopefully, when the depression really hits, I'll be relatively snug and secure.

I will probably need to live off my savings at some point, though, since I doubt much of my industry will survive – not good that the 'government' does nothing to help those with very hard-earned savings, who have not contributed to the economic crash. :cool:

For those whose savings are only a little above the cutoff point for benefits (£16k I think with anything over 6k affecting how much you get) I think it would be a smart move to spend the excess on buying 'desired' stuff and laying in large stocks of something useful like fuel or tinned food, so as to get the max benefit from your tax and NI contributions over the years should you become unemployed.

Of course, if you have a couple of thousand quid salted away in cash it's highly unlikely anyone would find out if you forgot to mention it on your JSA claim. Not that I would condone doing that of course, so be extra careful to remember and declare it if you should find yourself in that position..... hmmmkay?

edinburgher

I definitely agree that we'll see a narrowing of choice in the high street shops.

A move towards increased Internet shopping will exacorbate this, so get yourself online for as many purchases as possible. My reasoning behind this is that many retailers believe in the logic that '20% of stock is responsible for 80% of sales'. This means that retail units get smaller, stock ranges do too and choice drops badly.

This can already be seen in my favourite local retailers, with HMV selling little bar chart titles these days...

beingjdc

Zelie wrote: »

I think what sb44 is trying to say is that the stated national average is generally a fair bit higher than most people ever see. There are a small number of people earning huge wages and a large number of people earning very small wages. If you discount the former group (who are unlikely ever to struggle to buy a pair of shoes) then 'average' salaries are much lower.

Yeah but that's why most people who talk about the average wage use the median rather than the mean, as I recall there's about £2.5k difference between the two for the reasons you describe.

WTF?_2

edinburgher wrote: »

I definitely agree that we'll see a narrowing of choice in the high street shops.

A move towards increased Internet shopping will exacorbate this, so get yourself online for as many purchases as possible. My reasoning behind this is that many retailers believe in the logic that '20% of stock is responsible for 80% of sales'. This means that retail units get smaller, stock ranges do too and choice drops badly.

This can already be seen in my favourite local retailers, with HMV selling little bar chart titles these days...

Online is brilliant.

Was in town at the weekend looking to buy an expensive bit of home electronics gadgetery. Nightmare traffic jams on the way in, had to drive around the car park for ages and ended up squeezing into a space where some idiot had parked well over the line (it was the only space I could get), had to make my way through crowds of sheep-like shoppers in the streets and shopping centre and then waiting about half an hour to get served in a crowded, ill-ventilated shop only to be told that they didn't have that item in stock (despite advertising it) and couldn't say when they would next have it until at least the New Year when their warehouse opened after the holidays.

Went home, opened browser on laptop, quick google search, a couple of clicks later had ordered it from Play for the same price as advertised in the shop (incl delivery) but with Quidco cashback effectively giving me a small saving! Stock was confirmed so should have the kit by the end of the coming week.

In future, the internet will be my first port of call for anything but food and clothes. Even then, for expensive specialist stuff like outdoors wear I may well get them online. Got some great mountain biking gear from the USA at huge discounts a while back.