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brighton town centre turning into a ruddy GHOST TOWN
- Thread starter turienzo's lovechild
- Start date
D
Deleted User X18H
Guest
On the flip side I go out on Friday Night and I come home on Saturday morning.
Bevendean Hillbilly
New member
I like to venture into town,I like to get a few drinks down.
Why?
Kalimantan Gull
Well-known member
Borders gone bust? what a shame.
Thing with book-selling is that Tesco's can make a profit selling books at £2-3 if all they are selling is Dan Brown and John Grisham and Harry Potter. But specialist bookshops have to price them at £6-£8 because they are also stocking rare and obscure and genre titles which don't sell in huge volume, and so they stay afloat through the mass market titles. Supermarket's are possibly killing bookshops (and record stores) more than any other market because of this. Amazon may become the only place you can find obscure titles, but browsing on Amazon just isn't the same as browisng in a good bookshop. And Border's was a real good bookshop.
Thing with book-selling is that Tesco's can make a profit selling books at £2-3 if all they are selling is Dan Brown and John Grisham and Harry Potter. But specialist bookshops have to price them at £6-£8 because they are also stocking rare and obscure and genre titles which don't sell in huge volume, and so they stay afloat through the mass market titles. Supermarket's are possibly killing bookshops (and record stores) more than any other market because of this. Amazon may become the only place you can find obscure titles, but browsing on Amazon just isn't the same as browisng in a good bookshop. And Border's was a real good bookshop.
house your seagull
Train à Grande Vitesse
i love the non-fiction book shops on kensington gardens - i always like to have a peruse through them on my returns home and often make purchases ... they're pretty cheap but then Taschen and the like normally sell their books off pretty cheap.
Bevendean Hillbilly
New member
Tesco and ASDA use books as loss leaders so I doubt they worry about any margin.
People go in because they know they can pick up the latest top 10 novel for peanuts and pick up a few bits while they're there.
I think ASDA started it but all of the supermarkets have had to follow suit.
NMH
Banned
I hear from my mate who's a cabbie that it's a war zone in the weekend evenings, over much of the town centre.
Drunk chavs who couldn't get laid or pluck up the courage to talk to a bird except to call her a slapper and ask for a flash of her tits, then roll out on the pavements encouraged by door security men that cowed them just by being there but they like to sneer at and claim "I could 'ave 'em anytime if I wanted".
The anger exacerbated by run-ins with other similar groups requires that they then pick on a couple of 'normal' lads just walking along - and then perhaps kick in a window of some shop just for being there. They might score an Indian or Chinese or kebab, then upchuck same just after having eaten it.
They get home somehow, giving it large to some taxi or bus driver or get into a fight or slagging match on the train intimidating and insulting a 'clean' young lad and his girlfriend, then grovel home making sure to be antisocial enough to wake a few neighbours when they get there. Then they call their mate in the morning to moan that they can't remember much but could have had some bird if they wanted and will slap some geezer if he looks at them that way again.
So - alcohol is legal, and bars are always going to prosper. Hooray, England is thriving, the future looks great, and they know some bloke in Spain who'll always give them a job and help set them up so they can make Magaluf just like home.
Drunk chavs who couldn't get laid or pluck up the courage to talk to a bird except to call her a slapper and ask for a flash of her tits, then roll out on the pavements encouraged by door security men that cowed them just by being there but they like to sneer at and claim "I could 'ave 'em anytime if I wanted".
The anger exacerbated by run-ins with other similar groups requires that they then pick on a couple of 'normal' lads just walking along - and then perhaps kick in a window of some shop just for being there. They might score an Indian or Chinese or kebab, then upchuck same just after having eaten it.
They get home somehow, giving it large to some taxi or bus driver or get into a fight or slagging match on the train intimidating and insulting a 'clean' young lad and his girlfriend, then grovel home making sure to be antisocial enough to wake a few neighbours when they get there. Then they call their mate in the morning to moan that they can't remember much but could have had some bird if they wanted and will slap some geezer if he looks at them that way again.
So - alcohol is legal, and bars are always going to prosper. Hooray, England is thriving, the future looks great, and they know some bloke in Spain who'll always give them a job and help set them up so they can make Magaluf just like home.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,022
i dont think this is the full story. i cant see why a company can persistantly run "loss leaders" in non-core products, im certainly not going to go there especially for a book and they dont even market the books (or many other items) available cheap. the way i shop is the other way round, i go to Tesco to get food, groceries etc and pick up a cheap book/CD/whatever while im there.
i believe its the publishers dumping stock and/or using the bulk purchase to put stock and subsequently revenue through the books. looks great to have 100k of title x sold when maybe they are really sitting in Tescos shelfs/warehouses. Its certainly the case that many of the grocery promotions are from the suppliers offering deals while competing for market share.
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KZNSeagull
Well-known member
Very true. Thats why I said earlier that it is not just independant shops that suffer, but the smaller publishers as well. The irony of that is that Harry Potter would never have been published if it were not for a small publisher!!
I have an account with Gardners in Eastbourne, that supplies books to independant shops. It is often cheaper to buy books from Amazon that it is from them and they have written to all their customers imploring people not to do it as the consequences long term could be dire. To give you some idea, the standard discount on a book is 35% from the RRP. So a 6.99 paperback will cost a small shop 4.54. Tescos etc will be selling it for 3.50!! So Tescos are either making a loss or the publishers are giving them massive discounts. Amazon must be dictating terms to publishers. So it is not just that bookshops stock less popular items, but they are paying much more for the books in the first place.
Was Borders the one by the clocktower on the corner of West Street?
KZNSeagull
Well-known member
It will not be the publishers dumping stock, not on a brand new title. They will dump stock after 6 months if they are not selling and they get sold to remainder warehouses which is where places like Sussex Stationers get a lot of their stock from. It is more the bulk purchase thing - if Tescos go to a publisher and say "We want 500,000 copies of such and such, and we are only going to pay you 2 quid copy", the publisher is unlikely to say no!!
Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 31,270
If empty retail space eventually gets filled by bars / restaurants perhaps there will be so many pissed people staggering about shoppers will get fed up, so more shops will close?
It strikes me that because of the boom of online shopping there's simply too much commercial space and I'm struggling to see how it will ever be filled again.
I think councils need to get creative and try and work with landlords to get the empty space filled. Worthing has loads of empty outlets in Montague Street and the chavvy Guildbourne Centre a few minutes walk away. Ideally you'd relocate the retail outlets from the centre to Montague Street, then bulldoze the Guildbourne Centre and create some sort of green space / garden / kids play area.
Unfortunately, that sort of progressive thinking doesn't happen in the UK, least of all Worthing...
It strikes me that because of the boom of online shopping there's simply too much commercial space and I'm struggling to see how it will ever be filled again.
I think councils need to get creative and try and work with landlords to get the empty space filled. Worthing has loads of empty outlets in Montague Street and the chavvy Guildbourne Centre a few minutes walk away. Ideally you'd relocate the retail outlets from the centre to Montague Street, then bulldoze the Guildbourne Centre and create some sort of green space / garden / kids play area.
Unfortunately, that sort of progressive thinking doesn't happen in the UK, least of all Worthing...
Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 31,270
This thread makes me recall the time "Bouncing Back" by Alan Partridge got pulped...
- Jul 7, 2003
- 47,641
Or when Ashley Cole's autobiography got such bad pre-launch publicity thanks to the leaked excerpts about him nearly crashing his car into a tree in horror at only being offered £55k per week, that it was in the Woolies bargain bins within a couple of weeks of going on sale
Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 31,270
Was that "Bouncing Bark" by Ashley Cole?
I agree. There is far more commercial property than is needed - not just in Brighton.
What should be done is convert some commercial properties to accommodation. On the continental mainland, people live in city centres, here they rarely do. Brighton in particular is struggling to find space to build houses and flats and converting shops and offices could help.
Bevendean Hillbilly
New member
Superstores like all retail understand thie concept of loss leading very well.
Overall the cost of goods to them will be low based on volume (as has already been pointed out) and therefore they may make some small margin.
Very often though books - especially the latest bestsellers- will be sold at less than cost or at cost to generate footfall and match their competitors.
Overall the cost of goods to them will be low based on volume (as has already been pointed out) and therefore they may make some small margin.
Very often though books - especially the latest bestsellers- will be sold at less than cost or at cost to generate footfall and match their competitors.
Uncle C
Well-known member
There is an apparent excess of commercial properties because we are in the greatest recession this country has know. This wont always be the case.
Maybe it won't be. But do you think that when the recession is over the people who are shopping at Amazon, Play, Dabbs etc now will start shopping at bricks-and-mortar stores? As others have pointed out, clothes shops will survive but I can't see too many other kind of stores thriving - there's room for only so many charity and pound shops.