Support our high street shops and save the planet

IvanOpinion

JamoLew said:

looking at it from the other direction:
instead of lets say 100 separate households all making journeys to the shops to buy a widget - we now have 1 vehicle delivering all those 100 widgets to the 100 households.
Is that not a lot of unnecessary journeys saved 

In addition that will be 1 van whose engine is warmed up and efficient as opposed to 100 cars starting from cold when they are at their least efficient and more polluting.

HollyTrees

I think the point they were making was its become too easy just to order things willy nilly online,  people don't realise they dont appear on our door step by magic. It takes a lot of travel. 
Compared to if we did a weekly shop for things like clothes or whatever just like we do our groceries, it would mean less delivery vans would need to come out on the roads. 
I ordered 5 music cds a while ago, all purchased in the same transaction on Amazon, but the cds all came on seperate days. Meaning separate vans. Compared to if I physically went to HMV myself. 

JJ_Egan

Problem often is with the High Street  a lack of choice .

Frequently i go out and try  6 or so shops  fail to find what i want and buy online .

I just purchased Diesel cleaner from Amazon as Halfords etc far to expensive .Likewise some Lumbar support stuff . Amazon choice of at least ten and easy to try and return .

Plus High Street tends to be an identity in every town .many stores have moved from the High Street to Retail Parks with free parking .

I support local small shops as and when i can .

HollyTrees

JJ_Egan said:

Problem often is with the High Street  a lack of choice .

Frequently i go out and try  6 or so shops  fail to find what i want and buy online .

I just purchased Diesel cleaner from Amazon as Halfords etc far to expensive .Likewise some Lumbar support stuff . Amazon choice of at least ten and easy to try and return .

Plus High Street tends to be an identity in every town .many stores have moved from the High Street to Retail Parks with free parking .

I support local small shops as and when i can .

Yeah true. I guess both have their pros and cons. I think its easier to take things back to the high street store, clothes that didnt fit or something. Its nice to actually try on before you buy. 

JamoLew

100% agree with certain items -- clothes and shoes I always prefer to try before I buy
(yes I know I can with delivered as well, but it can be a pain returning stuff)

Mickey666

HollyTrees said:

I was listening to something on Radio 4 which alarmed me.
We can all reduce our carbon footprint by shopping on the high street because for every item we order online another delivery van gets sent out which basically equals more traffic. 
They said our need for things online has increased a lot in recent years but went into over drive during lockdown, and they are worried the trend will continue. But in the long run its detrimental to our enviroment. 
So for example they said just because you order 10 items online, it doesnt mean those 10 items will be in one van like you would think. The items are stored in different ware houses very often in different parts of the country, which is why they said its not out of the question that 10 vans will be sent out. 
Quite frightening isnt it? Surely the government needs to announce this to the country, because we could all do our bit and shop in the highstreet like we used to. 

doesn’t sound logical to me.  Yes, more online ordering means more van deliveries, but isn’t the point that one van can deliver to tens, if not hundreds of people?
Also, yes, items are sourced from many different warehouses but they are not delivered direct from the warehouse.  If you live in Surrey and order an item from Liverpool it won’t be delivered by a van travelling from Liverpool to Surrey. The item, long with thousands of others, will be moved between hubs before it is finally placed on a van for local delivery to your home (along with many other packages).  The logistics industry is complex but very efficient these days.
Finally, even if everyone did use the high street, what about all the deliveries to the shops?  These will still be a complex network of logistics supporting them, so online shopping is really just cutting out one ‘layer’.
There’s also the more mundane practicalities of high street shopping.  Not everyone lives within walking or cycling distance of a high street so how do they get there . . . Probably by car!  Plus, the success of supermarkets (those other high-street killing bad boys) is that you can buy everything under one roof (as well as park for free).  Who really wants to go to a butcher, then a green grocer, then a baker, then a newsagent, then an off-licence, in the rain, carrying an increasingly heavy bag from shop to shop, trying to keep the kids quiet, etc etc? 

Of course high st shopping is convenient for some people, which is why they use them, but for others it’s not.  These things evolve for the simple reason that people choose behaviours that are the most convenient for their circumstances, so if online shopping is booming there will be good reasons for it and I don’t really think it’s up to government to tell us how to run our lives.  In fact the very reverse!  Government should be facilitating things to help people run their lives as they wish - within reason of course.  There is certainly no simple fix!

Mickey666

HollyTrees said:

I ordered 5 music cds a while ago, all purchased in the same transaction on Amazon, but the cds all came on seperate days. Meaning separate vans. Compared to if I physically went to HMV myself. 

If you are really so concerned about wasted journeys you wouldn’t have ordered CDs in the first place, when music can be delivered or streamed online  

molerat

Councils need to support the high street as well, make it a place where people want to go. High rates, little convenient parking, high parking charges, unfair parking enforcement, the list goes on. Chatting to a local small shopkeeper the other day.  The council have closed the high street to vehicles to enable social distancing.  It has worked - there is no longer anyone on the high street to bump into. He says his busiest time is before 11am which is when the closure starts ! Business was getting back to "quiet Saturday" volumes and now it has tanked. He can't even get deliveries after 11am.

HollyTrees

Mickey666 said:

HollyTrees said:

I ordered 5 music cds a while ago, all purchased in the same transaction on Amazon, but the cds all came on seperate days. Meaning separate vans. Compared to if I physically went to HMV myself. 

If you are really so concerned about wasted journeys you wouldn’t have ordered CDs in the first place, when music can be delivered or streamed online  

I like to have the real physical product. I ordered them during lockdown because our local HMV was shut. But 90% of the time I like to browse the store. 

DCFC79

HollyTrees said:

I think the point they were making was its become too easy just to order things willy nilly online,  people don't realise they dont appear on our door step by magic. It takes a lot of travel. 
Compared to if we did a weekly shop for things like clothes or whatever just like we do our groceries, it would mean less delivery vans would need to come out on the roads. 
I ordered 5 music cds a while ago, all purchased in the same transaction on Amazon, but the cds all came on seperate days. Meaning separate vans. Compared to if I physically went to HMV myself. 

And how much would it cost you in parking.
Im all for the high street but it means driving there, paying for parking to then find I cant get what I need. 

Amazon did have the option to choose to group your items into less parcels, do they not have the option these days ?

Companies are using electric vehicles, John lewis and Waitrose are going to start converting to them.