SOME THINGS CHANGE AND SOME DO NOT.

 My first retail experiences in this remote area many years ago, were very different to the big city I had come from with all its choices and business competition.  Everything retail cost more than anywhere else, apart from what was available in Woolworths (R.I.P), and one chain white goods store, long since gone. Everything seemed to me to be heavily over-priced.  Festive periods were another time to supplement prices. Add to that higher fuel prices, and I felt that I had arrived in an expensive remote estate where life was different to my real world I had left behind.  

I had a disagreement with one grocery chain store soon after I arrived in the area, it treated its customers and staff, abominably. A submissive population changed overnight. The other grocery store moved to larger premises and provided well for its customers.        

Things changed with an improvement in the roads and in inter-city bus services.  It became a bit easier to travel the longer distances to a city. Then along came the internet and the burgeoning of internet shopping.  A few local retailers realised they would have to make an effort to compete.  It was reflected in their prices. They figured if the difference in price was marginal, it would be more attractive for shoppers to buy locally.  Shoes were different, in general, the buyer like to try before buying.  The shoe shops that were here, stocked  a range of footwear and reasonable quality shoes too. Custom was good.     
      
One local niche shoe shop closed down in November 2012, the owner retired.  In the county town, twenty miles away, its sister store continues.  The younger generation of the same family run the shop.  They do not have the customer manner the parents had; they are getting quite a reputation for being 'coarse', another way of saying ill-mannered and uncaring. The older generation were personable and their staff were very pleasant.  Their shop was one of
two that fitted children's shoes. 
                                                                                

Another shoe-shop chain is in difficulties, one which has local branches.  Other branches are on islands, all of these remote shops do good business. They may close soon. This shoe shop also fit children's shoes.  It is the city centre shops  that are dragging down the remote area branches, where competition is greater. Staff and the local people are devastated at this turn of events.                                    

Areas like ours where there are few choices, will feel a major draught with the loss of these shoe businesses.  One shop remains with maturing owners.  It sells a variety of goods and shoes.  They do not offer any service for children. There is a business professing to be a discount store, you have to be astute to shop well in it.  With all this upheaval, I suppose the ill-mannered people in the shoe shop twenty miles away feel that they do not have to make an effort to please customers. 

We have come a long way since my first retail experiences.  Online/internet shopping will still be available.  It will be difficult to return to the completely uncompetitive market there was. It will be a contracted tougher one, and different.   However, fuel prices are sky high, no change there then.