How do small shops survive?
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Caporegime
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While that sounds quite clever, can you give me a scenario whereby it actually makes sense?
The high street draws a slew of first-time retailers, who lack the experience, capital.
compound that with high rent and rates and it's usually a recipe for failure.
Only recently I tried in vain to warn a friend off opening a butchers. He lost huge amounts of money. The wastage on his stock was near total .
I also feel that most people underestimate the amount of work required in a small business. The point that I had hammered into me from a young age...' People make business not ideas'.
compound that with high rent and rates and it's usually a recipe for failure.
Only recently I tried in vain to warn a friend off opening a butchers. He lost huge amounts of money. The wastage on his stock was near total .
I also feel that most people underestimate the amount of work required in a small business. The point that I had hammered into me from a young age...' People make business not ideas'.
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Soldato
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They don't. Rents + Business Rates = Death of the highstreet.
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Talking to my local corner shop about stock, I pointed out some BBQ sauce bottles were out of date and he was saying how much they waste as they want to keep a full shop on the one hand but don't sell enough as they have to buy more than they sell in order to get it cheap enough to make a profit. I suggested that I would simply not hold so much stock and just stick to the main items and not care about empty shelves. They can manage because they own the property and live above it and family work there. But tesco just open down the street. Must be difficult as they stock things that I would never stock if I owned the shop as doubt anyone is going to buy the ham from there for example when tesco is fresher down the street.
I used to work in a small shop selling phone accessories and repairs.
They raked in 1.5 to 2.2k per week.
cases cost them 80p each, sold them for 10 quid each.
repairs were £30 + profit on each.
yet at the end of the month with 6-9k in the bank the owner would say there is not enough money to pay me... I worked on my own in that shop.
I Don't know if he was lieing or if it's actually that expensive to run a shop.
They raked in 1.5 to 2.2k per week.
cases cost them 80p each, sold them for 10 quid each.
repairs were £30 + profit on each.
yet at the end of the month with 6-9k in the bank the owner would say there is not enough money to pay me... I worked on my own in that shop.
I Don't know if he was lieing or if it's actually that expensive to run a shop.
Soldato
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Even the old off-licences are disappearing due to the small grocery shops being able to sell alcohol and there being a Tesco bleeding Metro every 500 yards.
Indian and Chinese restaurants/takeaways must being doing something right as 8/10 of my local ones have been there since before I moved into the area.
Indian and Chinese restaurants/takeaways must being doing something right as 8/10 of my local ones have been there since before I moved into the area.
I remember learning in business studies that something like only 1/10 business start ups are successful (measured against something like if the business manages to break even in 12 months) not sure how accurate this is but when you see the masses that fail it certainly seems quite true.
That and the absolutely laughable parking costs. They lost my trade, I'd rather drive somewhere else. It's too spread out meaning a browse of the shops can cost you £15 parking. The rent and parking has killed shopping in Cambridge.
Soldato
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The high street will be gone in 10-15 years, in our area 26% of the high street is charity shops, and I have to say parking charges do cause issues but the Council I work for gives two free hours everyday and in its cheapest car park charges 30p for two hours so you can park for 4 hours for 30p and the town is still dead.
The main issue is and I have had this discussion many a time at work is the internet and the shops being unable or unwilling to match the prices, two typical examples for m over Xmas were Game and Superdrug.
Its become the norm now for me to take the wife shopping on Xmas eve, we have a meal and get some last minute presents. She wanted some perfume which was £19 online delivered from Amazon, the lady at works husband is a manager at Superdrug and even with it on offer and staff discount it was £10 more in the shop then online. Game is another fine example who change £5-20 more in store then online, the only pull on the high street is a nice meal when your out.
The main issue is and I have had this discussion many a time at work is the internet and the shops being unable or unwilling to match the prices, two typical examples for m over Xmas were Game and Superdrug.
Its become the norm now for me to take the wife shopping on Xmas eve, we have a meal and get some last minute presents. She wanted some perfume which was £19 online delivered from Amazon, the lady at works husband is a manager at Superdrug and even with it on offer and staff discount it was £10 more in the shop then online. Game is another fine example who change £5-20 more in store then online, the only pull on the high street is a nice meal when your out.
Funnily enough, I was just talking about traditional shops with my Mum the other day.
I think one of the problems is that people have forgotten how traditional High_Street/Small shops actually worked.
Most of them were never really commercial concerns by any modern business standard, but that didn’t matter. Despite this, They still worked perfectly well as businesses and I will take a little trip down memory lane in order to explain why.
Back in the dark ages, When I were a Lad (Yes really, Cycling power cuts and all that, ) small shops were everywhere. One could hardly walk more than a 50 yards without coming across one (Even in areas that would be regarded as residential estates). Most of the suburban and residential ones sold Sweets, Magazines/Comics and the assorted odds and sods of day to day life. Tea, Sugar, Fuse wire, light bulbs, Tap washers, Sink plugs. Etc but you still came across the odd Butchers or greengrocers (And of course little post office shops were everywhere too. There used to be four within half a mile of where I currently live) That sort of thing.
Using one of these shops worked like this. There would be a sign on the door saying “Open” (Or, say, Gone to Dentists, back at 2:15pm etc) If it was open you entered. As you did so a bell over the door would go “Ting”, after a brief wait the shopkeeper would come through from the back room. (If he didn’t there was another bell on the counter that you could ring rather more forcefully)
He would then turn the light on!
You would then transact your business and leave,
He would then Turn the light off and return to whatever he was doing until the next customer arrived.
Self service was unheard off. The goods would be behind the counter and you pointed out what you wanted and the shop keeper got them for you. Even in the high street the busiest shops would be hard pressed to deal with much more than a dozen customers an hour.
Town centres didn't just have one Butcher or Greengrocer of Fishmonger. They had many!
(Incidentally, Week-ends were not shopping days as such. Families (Remember those?), including the shop owners ones, would usually be doing other things! Shops would open on Saturday mornings but would shut at lunch time. To compensate shop workers for this it was normal for shops to close on Wednesday afternoons! )
So how on earth did they survive??
Well, they were not self supporting commercial operations. Not by any modern understanding anyway.
Most of these shops were essentially the front ground floor room of the family home. The revenue they generated contributed to the family income but was not necessarily the main source of it. The marginal costs of running the shop were negligible. The family had to live there anyway and whoever it was that stayed at home during the day dealt with the customers.
The decline of the small shop probably began as the link between family homes and retail outlets was broken.
Without the shops, the residences were no longer attractive as family homes and tended to end up as rental accommodation or office space. Without the residential space, the Shops now had to be completely self supporting as commercial concerns.
There are of course been many other subtle social and economic changes over the last 40 years that have also eaten away at the “Small Shop” model but the loss of this linkage makes the survival of small shops in town centres and villages increasingly difficult
These days some of the most successful remaining small shops are the ones owned by Asians/Asiatics and this is because they still run them the same traditional way. They have extended families, they frequently live on the premises. They take turns working in the shop while others do other paying work! (There is a general shop like this near where I live, and a very good shop it is too! The local chippy is also run by a Chinese family and they live over the shop as well!)
If you want to restore the traditional high street, you need to restore the traditional high street business model!
Shops and residential accommodation need to be reintegrated. Town centre shops must be no longer regarded as an easy source of revenue for LA's and investment companies
This is not going to be easy for many reasons
I could go on, but this is a long enough post for now!
I think one of the problems is that people have forgotten how traditional High_Street/Small shops actually worked.
Most of them were never really commercial concerns by any modern business standard, but that didn’t matter. Despite this, They still worked perfectly well as businesses and I will take a little trip down memory lane in order to explain why.
Back in the dark ages, When I were a Lad (Yes really, Cycling power cuts and all that, ) small shops were everywhere. One could hardly walk more than a 50 yards without coming across one (Even in areas that would be regarded as residential estates). Most of the suburban and residential ones sold Sweets, Magazines/Comics and the assorted odds and sods of day to day life. Tea, Sugar, Fuse wire, light bulbs, Tap washers, Sink plugs. Etc but you still came across the odd Butchers or greengrocers (And of course little post office shops were everywhere too. There used to be four within half a mile of where I currently live) That sort of thing.
Using one of these shops worked like this. There would be a sign on the door saying “Open” (Or, say, Gone to Dentists, back at 2:15pm etc) If it was open you entered. As you did so a bell over the door would go “Ting”, after a brief wait the shopkeeper would come through from the back room. (If he didn’t there was another bell on the counter that you could ring rather more forcefully)
He would then turn the light on!
You would then transact your business and leave,
He would then Turn the light off and return to whatever he was doing until the next customer arrived.
Self service was unheard off. The goods would be behind the counter and you pointed out what you wanted and the shop keeper got them for you. Even in the high street the busiest shops would be hard pressed to deal with much more than a dozen customers an hour.
Town centres didn't just have one Butcher or Greengrocer of Fishmonger. They had many!
(Incidentally, Week-ends were not shopping days as such. Families (Remember those?), including the shop owners ones, would usually be doing other things! Shops would open on Saturday mornings but would shut at lunch time. To compensate shop workers for this it was normal for shops to close on Wednesday afternoons! )
So how on earth did they survive??
Well, they were not self supporting commercial operations. Not by any modern understanding anyway.
Most of these shops were essentially the front ground floor room of the family home. The revenue they generated contributed to the family income but was not necessarily the main source of it. The marginal costs of running the shop were negligible. The family had to live there anyway and whoever it was that stayed at home during the day dealt with the customers.
The decline of the small shop probably began as the link between family homes and retail outlets was broken.
Without the shops, the residences were no longer attractive as family homes and tended to end up as rental accommodation or office space. Without the residential space, the Shops now had to be completely self supporting as commercial concerns.
There are of course been many other subtle social and economic changes over the last 40 years that have also eaten away at the “Small Shop” model but the loss of this linkage makes the survival of small shops in town centres and villages increasingly difficult
These days some of the most successful remaining small shops are the ones owned by Asians/Asiatics and this is because they still run them the same traditional way. They have extended families, they frequently live on the premises. They take turns working in the shop while others do other paying work! (There is a general shop like this near where I live, and a very good shop it is too! The local chippy is also run by a Chinese family and they live over the shop as well!)
If you want to restore the traditional high street, you need to restore the traditional high street business model!
Shops and residential accommodation need to be reintegrated. Town centre shops must be no longer regarded as an easy source of revenue for LA's and investment companies
This is not going to be easy for many reasons
I could go on, but this is a long enough post for now!
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The other pull for high street is the ability to try clothes on and look at items before you buy them, which is only applicable in some industries. For example some electronics you don't need to look at them and often find more information and reviews online that you would get from some sales guy. I remember walking in to dixon looking for a nexus 7 first gen and not being able to get anyone to answer a few questions about the device. Mean while they had at least 6 staff in there. Other reasons for going to shops over online is delivery, sometimes its more convenient to buy in a shop that have to mess around with a delivery that never gets delivered because you are not in when they deliver it, only have to travel to pick it up. Also the likes of the big supermarkets moving away from food in to everything like walmart also affects the small stores as much as the likes of just amazon. In some azda you can get everything for example and at cheaper than a specialist store due to the size of the order they do across all their chains. My local just merged with a franchise loco so that they can benefit from purchasing in larger orders. This way 100 stores across the country will buy from wholesale and get cheaper price than they would if they were independent, tesco forced them in to that otherwise they can't compete. Before tesco arrived i suggested selling sandwiches as a primary product, even doing toasties as they get a lot of through traffic, rather than stocking canned food and all these items that people tend to go to supermarkets to get not corner shops. They didn't listen though. But as young people wanting to start a business the options are so limited due to all the factors, rental prices, parking problems, supermarkets, big malls, big franchises and online. It will end up just being coffee shops and travel agents on the high street and when all the other shops die out then the coffee shops and restaurants die out as well because they rely on the people going out for something else and stopping by. Unless they are in areas that have dedicated through traffic like a train station.
Eh? It's cheaper to drive in and park than it is for a family of 3+ to use the park and ride, which is ludicrous.
Associate
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Aye, we had a sweet shop open in the Mall at Cribbs Causeway. Not even sure it was there for 6 months LOL
You now have to also pay to park, if using the park and ride at Cambridge, which seems mental to me.
Christ. And they wonder why the roads are jammed solid at weekends..