I admit that I don't shop that often. I wouldn't say that I was the main shopper in our household. Yet I did find myself authorized to do some food shopping before Christmas and I found myself experiencing nostalgia not really for the items on offer but the methods of shopping.
I'll start with a general gripe. The expression 'stocking fillers' in bold type seemed to me to send out the wrong signals to any young child who could read but still believed in Father Christmas.
Then there is the question of customer service. However good the training, it just is not possible to get sufficient information, sufficiently easily if you are shopping in an aircraft hangar of a building that sells a huge variety of goods and cannot therefore have so much expertise on tap. Specifically on food however there was something about being able to smell and examine vegetables and fruit for example without them being wrapped and packed and plastered in stickers, which has now disappeared from many shops.
I stuck lucky in Crediton- our local market town. Firstly I could drive right into the centre and park. There were spouts available in sufficient quantity and loose and not in shrink wrapped packets of six! There is, Alleluia, a cheese shop selling, amongst others, local cheeses that the 'big' food retailers now seem to have withdrawn from their shelves ( not surprising that the dairy farms are struggling). There is an ironmonger too.
Do you remember those card games of 'happy families' that we played as children? Mr Bun the Baker for example. The pack of cards would be small today.
Much has been said about the 'death of the High Street' and I accept that urban planning is challenged in this area. Product price is an issue as is convenience and cheap or free parking. I just wonder whether there is a model that allows independent shops to come together and offer a combined facility for customers which will enable them to survive against the advantages of the large retailers.
There would need to be a way of drawing in outside investment and the independents too would need some equity share and the planners would have to be on side. It would provide a more secure and sustainable outlet for those farms who supply farmers markets. #justsaying
I hope that you had a good Christmas and that 2016 is good for you
