Wednesday 4 January 2012

The future of the high street - its another squeezed middle

Yes, the high street is in trouble.  But something else is going on there which is important for the future - a new division between would-be monopolies trying to sell us everything, and local enterprises with a personality behind them.  If you're not one of those, you;re in trouble:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/04/retail-squeezed-middle-high-street?newsfeed=true

2 comments:

Alastair Dryburgh said...

You have put your finger on a very important point. Large, cloned organisations are very efficient, but also indistinguishable from each other - i.e. BORING.

If you want to compete in this arena you need to be the most efficient and lowest price. It works for Tesco, not for Blacks or La Senza.

This is the argument for businesses that supports the message to consumers in your Manifesto for Humans.

There's a related rant by me at http://bit.ly/wB44Em

Liberal Eye said...

Large retailers are happy to go along with the idea that they are highly "efficient". But in practice what they mean is that they are "efficient" at extracting profits at the expense of customers and suppliers alike.

Here is my rant on the subject

http://liberaleye.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/economies-of-bullying/