OT:Why shops continue to die ...

[alan]

Some electronic boxes can be found with up to 12 brand names on them - often sold at different prices.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Had a friend at university whose feet were about 3 sizes different (there was some medical reason I forget now). He always ended up having to buy two pairs of shoes. There was a network of people with the same condition (well before the Internet;-), the idea being to match up with someone else who could use the two shoes you discard from the two pairs, and whenever you buy two pairs, you send the spare shoes to the other person. There weren't enough people in the network for it to be very effective, but I imagine in this Internet age, that might work much better, if it still exists.

[Andrew Gabriel]

PC World is halfway there (so I'm told - not done this myself)... You browse in the store and find what you want. You pull out your smartphone and order it from PC World online to get Internet pricing. You select collect from store. You take it home with you as you leave the store.

Of course, this probably isn't sustainable, but it highlights the problem of how does a store with much higher overheads compete with Internet suppliers with lower prices.

I heard on Radio 4 recently that online clothes suppliers have noticed a very rapid increasing trend which is impacting their business. Many customers now routinely order 2 or 3 sizes of garments, shoes, etc, and return the ones that don't fit under distance selling regs. This is generating quite a lot of overhead which they hadn't been allowing for, and in particular sectors, they end up getting half their sold stock returned after they had finished the sales campaign and in many cases after the seasonal opportunity for selling it has ended.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

'special' boots; the kind of thing you'd find in a psychiatric unit, without laces or buckles that could be used as weapons.

[polygonum]

The style I have bought are standard lace-ups. Unless you compare to another less-wide style, you'd never know the difference. Some indeed look awful.

[Adam Aglionby]

Fort retail Edinburgh, out of town sheds, PC World and much larger unit 4 doors down PCWorld / Currys Digital.

Also home to dead Jessops and Comet, levelled UCI cinema and ill looking HMV/Waterstones thats in the unit vacated by Borders books. On the other hand couldn`t get parked near the place over Christmas.

Looking for speakers, Pissy World old style , empty shelves and stock looking rundown, search online, reserve available at Fort retail at new style PizazzWorld/Worries Digital,its all laptops and big TVs, Currys white goods are relegated to a corner, as it happens speakers weren`t even on display, had to be retrieved from back, need the space for the tablet displays.

Take it they aren`t going to pay the rent on 2 units forever..

Cheers Adam

[Huge]

Cosyfeet will spam the living shit out of you and completely ignore requests to stop. I wouldn't go anywhere near them.

Anyone know who their CEO is?

[polygonum]

I don't see any spam from them. Did at one point get a few unwanted emails but they stopped.

[Apellation Controlee]

[Mark]

I understand that this has been common since before the DSRs were introduced. Buying clothing mail order can't be easy as sizes vary between manufacturers.

I guess they can discourage this by making customers pay the return postage on items they don't want.

[polygonum]

I have long felt that we need clothing retailers to tell us the actual sizes of clothes - rather than the notional "it should be this big" way they do things. Especially bad with women's clothing and the totally bizarre sizing system(s) they use.

Imagine, to take a really simple example, shirt collar - 17.26" (or whatever cm). At present you can get two nominal 17" collar shirts -one is generous and the other is too tight to do up the button.

[stuart noble]

Lands End are an online clothes retailer that have done their homework re sizes etc. Of course the real reason shops are dying is that sales can go down overnight but rent and council tax don't. Come the end of the lease, landlords can't give the place away, so it's yet another charity shop. With a bit of give and take some of these retailers could weather the storm, and the high streets might look a bit less run down.

[Adrian]

In message , stuart noble writes

And (some) councils are not helping by making it increasing unattractive to go into town centres with their parking policies.

Adrian

[Tim Watts]

On a positive note:

Went to JB's Music in Tunbridge Wells to look at a midi keyboard for the kids.

I had asked them if I could try the 61 key version of an M-Audio Axiom with a view ot buying (ordering from them) the 49 key version.

The bloke could not have been more helpful - keyboard out on the counter, let my jack my laptop in to use as a synth (and for me to see if it worked with Linux).

Let the kids try it to see if they got on OK with the "feel".

15 minutes of fiddling later, I realised the thing was not as long as I though it was (M-Audio's website is a bit hard finding dimensions).

I told the bloke I though this longer one would actually be OK and asked how much.

229 he said, immediately followed by "but I can discount it to 209".

I took it. Looking just now, the cheapest internet price is 217!!

Not only, but the kids had fund trying a set up demo drum set and the guitar specialist bloke show my 7 year old son some electric guitars, let him try one and ran off some riffs himself, to show what could be achievced with practise. My son is learning on a cheap ebay guitar and I promised him a low end electric next summer if he makes consisent progress (he is so far).

Now, that shop is almostly certainly getting another sale.

[Dave Liquorice]

That's sensible, the kids are in school all week and not available clothes/shoe shopping and the majority will have bought during the holidays anyway.

[Dave Liquorice]

Blooming daft, 17" is 17" you should be able to get your ruler out and measure 17" from button to button hole. Story, end of.

[geoff]

Look - in SE Asia, there are even two standards for A4

[Dave Liquorice]

Ah but thats a standard not a measurement. The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

[Owain]

There used to be here, in the days of tractor-fed printers. Printer A4 was exactly divisible by the no. of steps per inch the tractors could advance so the print didn't get out of step with the page-break perforations.

Owain

[polygonum]

Very largely agree. As even modern factory textile manufacture is relatively imprecise, and even things like different material can result in final garment size variation, making to an exact size might not always be feasible. Hence my suggestion of presenting actual sizes rather than notional.

Also, the inbetween-sized items might be just right for some people - wouldn't want someone who likes a 17.4" collar not being allowed to buy one. So whilst you should be able to check the measurement as you say, I am not against having a variety of actual sizes.

Haven't noticed them for a while, but used to see shirts with tiny silver reflective dots - obviously used in automated manufacture. Such shirts always did seem quite accurately made.