Why Do Corner Shops stay in Business?
"We think [the revival] is very much due to corner shops reinventing themselves as convenience stores, and offering a lot more products in line with what modern customers want," he said. "They are not gaining customers at the expense of supermarkets. "They are making a high level of sales for distress and top-up purchases, where people need to buy a few things but do not want to do a main shop."
Why do we support the small shops when it would seem that the supermarkets have everything to offer and have such support from the population.? Well, we have examined the advantages of supermarkets but not the drawbacks. They are often the things which one cannot value In pounds and pence. The supermarkets and hypermarkets often contribute nothing to community life. The conveyor-belt speed service leaves little space for chat a personal interaction, after all "time Is money", and the assistants appear to resent the customers. This is not entirety surprising -- every one shopping or employed in a superstore become inevitably de-personalised when there is an absence of familiarity and where everyone is a stranger. A hierarchy builds up and customers with a complaint about products/service have to phone or write to faceless customer enquiry departments ... which are often miles away. Power is concentrated in the hands of an ever-decreasing number and the trend gathers momentum with glossy advertising campaigns in the media -- the small shop is powerless against such monolithic monopoly capitatism at its worst. It has little resemblance to enterprise. It is closer to the corporate structure of the former empires, in that wealth and ownership is concentrated there is little accountability. There is a Lifeline for the small trader.... A mechanism has to be devised to enable them to sell a small selective range of goods without being undercut. I would suggest either a special "bulk-buy tax" upon retailers who bulk buy over a certain amount of goods or maybe a surcharge for shops which sell a larger range of goods (what constitutes a range? - that would have to be set by an independent panel) A multiple product surcharge could worked as follows : A large hypermarket which sold Newspapers in one section and Pharmaceuticals/Fresh Bread/potatoes etc in other sections would be treated as if it were a combination of a Newsagents. Chemists, Bakers and Green Grocers shops and pay 4 lots of tax whereas a shop which was simply a Green Grocers would be liable for only one tax rate. This would immediately reverse the decline of the small shop, I believe, and make their goods far more affordable to the consumer. Other measures could be taken whilst this was phased in :
