back to article Nearly a million retail jobs will be destroyed by the march of tech, warns trade body

Structural upheaval driven by technological change will cost British retailers nearly one million jobs by 2025, according to a trade body. There could be 900,000 fewer jobs in retail in nine years’ time as a result of accelerated store closures and shifting priorities in investment. That’s according to the British Retail …

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  1. djstardust

    Hmmmm

    The fact there are far too many shops selling exactly the same shit is nothing to do with it?

    And also the "corporate" brands have pretty much eradicated independent traders in many places.

    Every retail park and mall has EXACTLY the same shops and it just bores me to tears.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Re: Hmmmm

      I was just about to post the same thing. The death of the "high street" is due to the clone-a-shop retail outlets.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hmmmm

        The death of the "high street" is due to the clone-a-shop retail outlets.

        And don't forget the high parking charges levied by the local councils. You would almost think they didn't want cars in the high streets.

        1. Peter2 Silver badge

          Re: Hmmmm

          Well.

          Councils have more involvement that just parking, they also screw real shops in the high street with additional taxes. Unless your a charity shop or estate agents which are encouraged to take high street locations by virtue of being tax exempt. No idea why on either, but it explains why we have 6 charity shops, 8 estate agents and only 5? actual shops.

          The main issue though is simply that frankly a lot of high street shops don't actually deserve to survive. In order to survive, bricks and mortar shops really need to be able to win on at least one of the following:-

          1) Price

          2) Quality

          3) Speed of Delivery

          4) Service

          Our local butchers (for instance) richly deserved to die, because they failed in every area. Their quality was worse than the local supermarkets, they charged more and the staff weren't helpful. The butchers van that turns up on the market is surviving and will continue to survive because you can get either better prices or better quality than the supermarkets, depending on what you pick.

          The local electronics shop that sells white goods survives because they stock a smallish range of good quality equipment, but keep them all in stock so if somebody walks in and wants one then they can offer to stick it in their car then and there, or deliver within the hour in their van for a small additional charge. This business survived despite being ten minutes away from a Comet superstore. Comets failed most of these, and have now died out.

          The high street clothes shop has been around for 150+ years, and continues to survive despite being within a 2 minute walk of major chain stores, and an ASDA with a clothing section. They manage this and are doing pretty well because they recognise that quite a lot of men despise clothes shopping and offer better quality than average clothes at a not unreasonable price. That, and they have genuinely helpful staff who can quickly take your measurements, show you which clothes actually suit you and where they are in the store, so you can be in and out in mere minutes.

          Competing against internet shops is not radically more difficult than competing against another brick and mortar store. All it does is kill off stores that can't adapt to offer what customers want and are willing to pay for, and that has been happening for much longer than the internet has been around. Lack of adaption and a total absense of business planning is the problem, not internet shops.

          1. eesiginfo

            Re: Hmmmm

            You make a lot of pertinent points, and I agree with much of what you say.

            However I would take issue with:

            "Competing against internet shops is not radically more difficult than competing against another brick and mortar store."

            I would suggest that the difference is entirely radical, certainly for many segments of the retail sector.

            For starters, the big 'distribution type' companies pay barely any tax in comparison to bricks & mortar types.

            Also with web purchasing, people can very quickly locate, compare, read reviews & technical specs, and find the best deal.

            This is a radical change to the entire bricks & mortar retail business model.

            I rarely enter a shop now (other than a supermarket).

            I don't think that I'm alone.

            1. Stoneshop

              Re: Hmmmm

              Also with web purchasing, people can very quickly locate, compare, read reviews & technical specs, and find the best deal.

              Not only that, an Internet store can easily offer a larger selection and, due to volume, at lower prices than your average B&M shop, and that's even before counting high street area rent, council taxes etc.. Physical shops don't attract customers from all over the country, unless they're extremely attractive on price, advice and/or service; if you're shipping stuff anyway you can just as well service the entire country and beyond (a fair amount of stuff I buy over the Internet is from Germany).

            2. Tom 13

              Re: For starters, the big 'distribution type' companies pay barely any tax

              Brrrrrrrttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!

              He covered that in line 2 (first full sentence).

              Retail shops have advantages virtual ones will never have: You can really see it, pick it up, feel it. Those are huge advantages over the ones you credit to the virtual stores. Indeed the primary reason it is difficult to do the comparisons for the brick and mortar stores is precisely that they have worked licensing deals to obscure the real comparisons.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Hmmmm

            Having worked briefly for a town council (6 months) it seemed to me this is all the fault of Central Government, over the years they have relentlessly cut local government funding forcing Councils to look every which way to keep themselves running, which of course leads to excessive parking regulation and high business rates, the place i was working for were trying to perform miracles with very limited funding, and even then most of them are in the red by at least a million pounds or often more.

            I was reading an article about the EU referendum recently where Hastings council were saying they would not have open libraries and museums if it were not for EU grants, all the time we've got skinflint Osbourne controlling the purse strings I can't see that changing.

            1. LucreLout

              Re: Hmmmm

              @AC

              this is all the fault of Central Government, over the years they have relentlessly cut local government funding forcing Councils to look every which way to keep themselves running, which of course leads to excessive parking regulation and high business rates

              That is because councils missed the point entirely. The goal is not to keep themselves running. The goal is to slash the overstaffed inefficient back offices through the use of automation, increased effort, and some semblance of competency.

              Preservation of the status quo was never the goal, nor should it have been. Thus, it is really the fault of the petty empire builders within the council.

          3. This post has been deleted by its author

            1. Pompous Git Silver badge

              Re: @peter2 Hmmmm

              Steaks taste a lot better when you know it was walking around on its own less than 24 hours ago.

              No they don't. The beast needs to be hung for 10 to 14 days. Fresh beef tastes metallic and lacks beef flavour. It's also tougher. Full beef flavour requires a minimum of 11 days of aging. I suspect you don't really like beef.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              "Steaks taste a lot better when you know it was walking around on its own less than 24 hours ago."

              Steaks taste better when they've been properly aged.

          4. Brad Ackerman
            Holmes

            Re: Hmmmm

            In order to survive, bricks and mortar shops really need to be able to win on at least one of the following:-

            Good as far as it goes, but misses one major point: in order for customers to hand you money, you need to be present to receive it. Lots of high street shops don't seem to have noticed that trading hours were deregulated, and they no longer need to close before their customers get off work.

          5. ecofeco Silver badge

            Re: Hmmmm

            Well said Peter. Well said. Many retail shops are their own worst enemy.

        2. Peter Simpson 1

          Re: Hmmmm

          I was going to say the death of retail (including "big box" stores) due to the fact that whatever you're looking for is available online.

          Annoyed from walking into clothing stores and finding that yes, my size in the color I want is again "out of stock" and no, they don't know when or if they'll be getting any more of them,

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Hmmmm

        > The death of the "high street" is due to the clone-a-shop retail outlets.

        And councils putting in parking meters, plus constantly raising business rates as more and more businesses decide they've had enough and get the fuck out of Dodge.

        A classic example was Dorking: The town axed half hour parking charges and doubled the 1 hour rates on the basis that they needed the income (which is actually illegal, parking revenue is not to be used as general income) - the end result was that parking revenue HALVED. Most businesses reported a downturn on sales too. People just go where the parking is easy and free instead - it's called voting with your wallet.

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Hmmmm

        "The death of the "high street" is due to the clone-a-shop retail outlets."

        Motorist-hostile council policies don't help. Nobody there realises that money arrives by car. And out-of-town centres have let their car-parks to the parking vultures.

    2. djstardust

      Re: Hmmmm

      And it's exactly the same with chain restaurants.

      Frankie & Bennys

      Chiquitos

      Coast to Coast

      Garfunkel's

      All owned by the same company. And usually all next door to each other in the same mall or retail park. Deliberately done that way to eradicate competition.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmmmm

      Yup, plus people go crazy with excitement when their town gets a Nandos. Meanwhile nobody talks about how great their local independent restaurants are because they've often never been in them.

      It's all about brand and expectations, people won't take a risk.

      1. Rol

        Re: Hmmmm

        Hmmmm, sheeple, woolly chavs that by their sheer number encourage the least deserving onto success.

        It's no wonder that choice and quality has vacated the high street, when people rely on glitzy adverts to tell them what to buy, and divine quality by looking at the price tag.

        Then we have the ludicrous situation where most of the high street is owned by just a few parent companies, with multiple brand outlets, that seemingly compete with each other, yet, as pointed out already, exist for the sole purpose of monopolising the place, to the ultimate detriment of the shopper.

        Thank fuck I've got a computer and an internet connection, so I can extract myself from this managed menagerie of bird brained shoppers and cat stroking retail barons.

    4. a_yank_lurker

      Re: Hmmmm

      @djstardust - I was thinking the same. In the US retail is overbuilt and many stores are essentially selling the same stuff even the same brands.

      It seems that these doom-and-gloom pieces ignore that jobs lost at the store level will be replaced by jobs for delivery and distribution centers. Amazon, et. al. must get the products to their customers so how. Also, many stores (Best Buy & Walmart definitely) in the US have in-store pickup which is very handy if the item is very valuable and rather easy to five-finger discount.

  2. Yugguy

    It's all the fault of the Tories, er Labour, er, the Tories, er, Labour, er...

    There's an article on this on the BBC with a comments section with everyone blaming their favourite political target.

    This is not political, it's cultural. We've fundamentally and irreversibly changed the way we shop.

    1. Tom 13

      Re: It's all the fault of the Tories, er Labour, er, the Tories, er, Labour, er...

      It is political. The freetards are opposed to taxing things on the internet. That gives the internet a HUGE builtin advantage on pricing. There's simply no way around that problem. And you can tell how critical an advantage this is because of how loud they all scream when anybody suggests changing it.

      I'm all for keeping tax rates as low as possible and imposing them as broadly as possible. It's a fine line distinction, but a critical one.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It's all the fault of the Tories, er Labour, er, the Tories, er, Labour, er...

        The freetards are opposed to taxing things on the internet.

        So, you're suggesting that internet retailers don't pay UK VAT, business rates on their premises, the various taxes on employment that government apply to all businesses, fuel duties in distribution etc etc? The only place the playing field isn't level is in the area of corporation tax for multinationals, and anybody who thinks that works out as cheaper customer prices evidently can't do maths.

        The internet is (usually) much cheaper because high street retail is space and labour inefficient, leading to higher rents, higher labour costs, higher payroll taxes, as well as increasing the working capital in the supply chain. Factor in the festering sore of business rates, and the high streets problems can be seen as sadly inevitable. Taxing internet retailers more would certainly put their costs up, but I can't see that changing modern shopping habits.

  3. HmmmYes

    There's more to go than that.

    For starters, the 5 people at PC world who were chatting and ignoring me when I popped into buy a HDD.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      When I'm forced to go into PC world, I pray the *******s will ignore me. I need some clueless eejit trying to sell me a £15 USB cable with my purchase like I need hole in the head.

      1. wyatt

        Interested to know why the A/C? Unless you work there..!?

        1. chivo243 Silver badge

          @wyatt

          +1 sir.

          Yes, inquiring minds want to know.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Nope, I always go A/C when I'm taking cheap shots.

      2. Pig Dog Bay
        Thumb Down

        PC World / Currys - Hell on earth, try to pay for goods and they sit you down and hard sell you insurance;

        "...

        Me: For the 10th time, I don't want transportation insurance!

        Them: What if you're new TV is damaged when getting it home in your car?

        Me: I'll just bring it back and say it was already broken and demand my money back.

        ..."

        The last time I ever went in, was to pick up my Nexus 7 back in 2012:

        "Hiya mate! You wouldn't believe the deal we've got on Norton Antivirus.."

        15 minutes later I'm yelling f**k off to them and just give me my bloody tablet.

        Utter chunts, good riddance if they go under

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I got the "So you *want* to get viruses?" method of anti-virus sales for a tablet I bought recently.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            I tried the "why, are you selling me something that's sooooo vulnerable I need to buy protection here and now, just in case?" The silence was a reward of it's own.

        2. Lysenko

          "Hiya mate! You wouldn't believe the deal we've got on Norton Antivirus.."

          No need for annoyance: just ask if it can do Hyperconverged DevOps or something. That's guaranteed to bore your victim into silence - especially if (s)he actually knows what you're talking about.

          1. akeane

            Re: "Hiya mate! You wouldn't believe the deal we've got on Norton Antivirus.."

            I would rather have the virus thanks, they use up less resources and don't nag you about upgrading every 5 minutes!

        3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          "15 minutes later I'm yelling f**k off to them and just give me my bloody tablet."

          15 minutes later? You must have had plenty time on your hands. Id have been 14 minutes away by then, with or without the tablet.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      WTF?

      You went to PCW to buy a HDD? Are you mad or something worse?

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: WTF?

        He's probably had experience of receiving a HDD in an envelope or whatever Amazon decides their economy packaging du jour is and then finding out that it disappears up its own fundament about 6 months to a year later.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: WTF?

          "He's probably had experience of receiving a HDD in an envelope"

          Return it, "refused, inadequate packaging, transport damage"

          I did that enough times to our suppliers that they got the hint - and made sure WD/Seagate were notified of the serial numbers so they couldn't palm them off on some other poor schmuck.

      2. Cynic_999

        Re: WTF?

        HDDs are not much more expensive (if at all) in PCW, and I can be installing it 1 hour after I decide I need it (after checking online that they have it in stock & reserving for collection)

    3. Vic

      the 5 people at PC world who were chatting and ignoring me

      My missus' phone blew up one evening, so we went out to get a new one - there's a 24-hour Tesco near us who sell phones.

      She couldn't decide whether to buy the S5 or the S6 - she wanted to see how they felt. The display models had this huge ant-theft carrier, which meant you really couldn't tell.

      Tesco weren't interested in letting her feel one unencumbered - so we left without buying either.

      Vic.

  4. Lysenko

    A shift to more valuable jobs in analysis...

    A shift to more McJobs drop kicking boxes around Yodel sorting warehouses I think you mean.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A shift to more valuable jobs in analysis...

      Nope, that'll be done by robot

      1. Lysenko

        Nope, that'll be done by robot.

        Too much CapEx. No need to invest in hardware when there is lots of instantly disposable wetware to exploit, exhaust and discard.

        1. Tom 13

          Re: Too much CapEx

          Nope.

          The topic of robots came up this weekend when I visiting my folks. He'd seen the clip everybody's been raving about on the news. We did some back of the envelope calculations. Assuming a half million (insert your local currency here) and an annual salary of (_currency symbol_)35K, you'll recoup the cost of a robot in about 3 years. Remember, the cost to the business of that employee is about 50K, plus you get a 3x multiplier because it doesn't need to sleep.

      2. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: A shift to more valuable jobs in analysis...

        But a robot can't kick your package around the courier warehouse nearly as well as a human can.

        If you ever have someone griping about packaging being expensive, show him (always a him) the videos of courier abuse sitting on Youtube. The most egrarious examples happen inside the warehouses.

        1. Lysenko

          Exactly.

          Those multi-million DARPA efforts can barely even walk properly. Yodel want guys who can slot an Amazon box between the posts at Twickenham from 30 paces and make a credible effort at Discus and Shot Putt. Robots? Meh.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A shift to more valuable jobs in analysis...

          Oh, yes...

          I had the dubious pleasure of installing a system at a certain Heathrow Air-Freight company. It was quite amusing to watch the muppets shove boxes around the warehouse using a forklift truck because it was too much effort to do it properly.

          Saw one slide a fork lift truck into a stack of pallets because he was going too fast, stop and shrug when he saw the damage then continue on his merry way.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: A shift to more valuable jobs in analysis...

      Yep, I'm tired of this fiction that everyone and anyone can have a desk job if they just try hard enough when most people barely know how turn a PC on!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    News just in...

    ...people like shopping on the internet, so they have more choice, lower cost, and delivered to their home or workplace.

    Compare this to the high street - devoid of selection, out of stock, higher costs (due to overheads), parking charges and lousy customer service.

    Unless you are offering something unique or value-add, over and above internet shopping, you deserve to go out of business.

    1. Warm Braw

      Re: News just in...

      It's kind of odd that it should be cheaper to have stuff delivered individually compared to the cost of picking it up from a central distribution point (aka "shop"). One of the reasons is the absurdly high rents (and indeed rates) on commercial premises that date back to the boom years of credit-fuelled retail expansion.

      Lack of demand is gradually depressing rents for retail property and it will likely eventually fall to a level where shops are potentially more viable - provided any of them still exist at that point. I'm not sure it's in any of our best interests to have major transport hubs (city and town centres) surrounded by empty property and tumbleweed because the investment property market couldn't or wouldn't adjust to changes in economics.

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