6000 high streets shops close in england because of amazon

[dominatrixjane]

6000 high streets shops close in england because of


people internet shopping


https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/11/tough-year-high-street-internet-shopping-weak-pound

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1473746

 

[oggbashan]

Amazon and internet shopping is a major factor but far more important than that is the change to Business Rates for shops.

High Street locations pay high rates. Retail parks pay less for space. Warehouses that have no public access pay the lowest business rates.

Edited to add: High Streets have been 'dying' for decades mainly because of competition from large out-of-town retail parks with ample parking and no charges. Finding a parking space in a High Street or close to it is difficult and the council's parking fees too high.

Locally my council has encouraged owners of shops in secondary locations to convert them to residential. That has been their consistent policy for thirty years. The result is that the shops in the major town locations are sought after. Until recently we had very low vacancy rates for the remaining shop fronts.

Changes to the business rate concessions for charity shops has led four of them to close in the last six months. They were no longer generating enough income even with free donations and unpaid volunteer staff to justify the effort. I expect at least two of those closed charity shops to be turned into residential.

However some of our shops are doing very well. One electrical store will accept orders through a nationwide internet link of similar stores. Even if they do not have the particular product at their store it will arrive within 24 hours. They will deliver, and fit if necessary, appliances in a one hour time slot from 6 am to 10 pm seven days a week. Their sales through their smallish shop front justifies three sales assistants, four engineers and four delivery vehicles.

They have adapted. So have some others locally by being very specialised. But some people open a shop front and I know they will fail within months. They haven't done their market research properly.

 

[Blue]

Did you know Amazon operates at a loss?

I think they made a profit last year, a loss before that, a profit before that, and ran a loss amounting to billions of dollars in their first 4 years. And most years they run on a large loss of money. The company itself has made less money in its 20 years of existence than Exxon Mobil takes in every month. Yet the CEO, Bezos, is making about $8b a month. His net worth has grown by $30b just 4 months into this year alone.

How? You ask? It comes from Amazon's stock market value. Finance capitalism.
Thanks to the existence of stock markets and market speculation trading, a single share in Amazon is worth >$1100, of which he owns about 81 million. Hence the nigh disgustingly large net worth he has considering he doesn't pay his employees even a subsistence wage.

They don't pay a penny in taxes due to their business model yet the CEO is the richest man on Earth by a huge margin and Amazon has been allowed to buy up Twitch (Youtube's primary competitor), Audible, IMBD, Goodreads, The Washington Post, etc.
Predatory, parasitic and unfair capitalism at its finest.