Convenience and consequences

[Grand Moff Muffin]

The demise of HMV and small independent retailers are due in large part to consumers shifting to more convenient, cheaper alternatives like on-line and supermarkets, which they are perfectly entitled so to do.

Other things we do for the sake of more convenient lifestyles have more serious consequences, often unforeseen. Britain, having pioneered the industrial revolution, made a lot of mistakes before anyone else made them. Other countries are now making the same mistakes we made, knowing the consequences in advance, but accepting them as a price worth paying for the sake of speedy development (and claiming a right to aspire to the same lifestyles we've obtained, causing the same damage along the way). One case in point is the choking air pollution in Tehran and Beijing as everyone aspires to own a car:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20937035

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-21007893

My view is that countries who reaped the benefits of making environmental errors through ignorance during their industrial development have a duty to help other nations develop without causing the same harm along the way, but those other nations also have a responsibility, in that causing harm knowingly is far less forgivable than causing it in ignorance. This unfortunately then results in an argument about how much developed nations should pay towards helping developing nations to develop in a more sustainable manner than we did - for the sake of future generations in all countries, and all the other species that share the planet with us.

So... safer chemicals, clean energy, sustainable transport solutions, sustainable farming, climate change mitigation and adaptation, preservation of what remains of our wildlife... it's a daunting shopping list, and is given a very low priority in hard economic times. I can make only the smallest contribution to achieving this stuff through my job and extracurricular pursuits, but if everyone makes their own small contribution it can make a big difference. Likewise, cutting corners in small ways for the sake of convenience can stack up into major harm to the planet.

Hm, I haven't really got anywhere with this ramble, but it's time to get dressed and go to work, so I'll leave it at that and see what people make of it.

Martin

[Philip Ayres]

I think money is the key here. Offer something cheaper and people will come, which is why I started buying online. Now it's more an issue of not physically being able to get out reguarly to buy stuff.

[The Doctor]

In a recession people have less money and/or are more fearful of unemployment so will migrate to where products are cheaper even if it is not as convenient.

-Ralph

[kayevcee]

Indeed. HMV branches were always central and easy to get to while big supermarkets are often further out, but if it takes an extra half hour or so on a day off to save a few quid on a purchase, people are more like to do it now than a few years ago because they have less cash to spare.

-Nick

[blueshift]

Jan 16, 2013 21:03:31 GMT kayevcee said:

Indeed. HMV branches were always central and easy to get to while big supermarkets are often further out, but if it takes an extra half hour or so on a day off to save a few quid on a purchase, people are more like to do it now than a few years ago because they have less cash to spare.

-Nick

Actually, given the prevalence of supermarkets, it takes far far longer for me to go to HMV than the supermarkets. And HMV is much more expensive! I'm not really inclined to take a detour to get ripped off!

[The Doctor]

I will generally travel a bit further if something is significantly cheaper. Especially if I can get a decent walk out of it as I enjoy walking a great deal.

-Ralph

[legios]

Apparently, Blockbuster has also gone into administration - a victim of being caught without a viable business model after the rise of DVD rental by post, movies on demand channels etc, etc.

I'll be honest, I wasn't even really aware that they were still trading - my mental model of DVD rental had switched so far over to the "Stick DVD in post, get another back again" of LoveFilm that I didn't think that there still was a large chain of shops with all the attendant bricks and mortar overheads that entails. I think this probably qualifies as an example of what you are talking about Martin - people voted with their feet in terms of the convenience of not having to make a trek to a specific place to rent their DVDs and as a result Blockbuster has found itself high and dry.

Karl

[The Doctor]

I was a heavy and happy user of Blockbuster for many years but called it a day when price rises meant there was only a 50p diffeence between renting a film or seeing it at the cinema. I was happier to pay the extra 50p for the big screen experience and the trip. This was around whatever year the film 'Stealth' was as that was my last rental.

For films I have missed at the cinema, I thereafter became used to the £3 bins in supermarkets where buying a film was cheaper than renting so I never felt the urge to go back to Blockbuster.

-Ralph

[Bogatan]

Jan 16, 2013 21:11:25 GMT blueshift said:

Jan 16, 2013 21:03:31 GMT kayevcee said:

Indeed. HMV branches were always central and easy to get to while big supermarkets are often further out, but if it takes an extra half hour or so on a day off to save a few quid on a purchase, people are more like to do it now than a few years ago because they have less cash to spare.

-Nick

Actually, given the prevalence of supermarkets, it takes far far longer for me to go to HMV than the supermarkets. And HMV is much more expensive! I'm not really inclined to take a detour to get ripped off!

For me HMV has almost always been the hardest place to go for music and dvd, located at the far end of town (from my perspective) and about as far from free parking as possible in the city centre.

Any journey to a supermarket or HMV involved either a bike ride or bus journey if not driving, buses where as bad either way but I can ride to an Asda with many of the other city centre shops I might want or more recently a Tesco in the city centre which is the near side of the centre to me.

Obviously online shopping and digital downloads have been the killer blow, but the city councils should have worked out (like seemingly everyone else) that lack of free parking was killing town centres and can't have helped any of the businesses that have gone under in recent years.

On the rare occasion I go into HMV I love the selection even in its current reduced state. I see things I wouldnt even consider to buy online.

If anyone has watched The Newsroom on Sky Atlantic Jeff Bridges nails it with his comment about missing encyclopaedia because you no longer have the joy of finding something you weren't looking for.

But even then I see the price and its always enough to override my desire to impulse buy it. Even if it was within 20% of online or supermarket prices, if I had it in my hands I'd likely go for it, but it always seems higher.

Also Blockbusters. Blimey they employ almost as many people as HMV, for some reason that really surprises me.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Jan 16, 2013 23:53:54 GMT Bogatan said:

lack of free parking was killing town centres and can't have helped any of the businesses that have gone under in recent years

Town and city centres are generally too congested (and polluted and noisy) as it is, without free parking encouraging even more people to drive into them. For inner urban areas, use of public transport is the only sustainable way forward - and rightly so in my opinion. (See links to stories on Tehran and Beijing at top of thread.)

In times of recession, some people will indeed change where they shop. Other people who use supermarkets and aren't currently buying Sainsbury's 'Basics' or Tesco 'Value' ranges will shift their loyalties within the supermarket - i.e. downgrade from Sainsbury's 'Taste the Difference' or Tesco 'Finest' products, or to the aforementioned Basics / Value lines, or just generally away from name brands towards store brands, and make more use of bulk offers, etc.

Sometimes the cheaper / non-name brand products are no worse, but sometimes they are lower quality in terms of either taste or nutrition, or animal welfare standards, or environmental impact. (Free-range/woodland eggs, organic milk, Ecover washing powder, etc. aren't the cheapest - though they are a lot cheaper than they were before the markets for them took off.) Also, cheaper food often means poorer prices for farmers. But those considerations take lower priorities for customers when they have less money to play with.

On the other hand, hopefully consumers and food retailers will be throwing less edible food in the bin / rejecting less of it on grounds of shape and size when they have less money to spend replacing it, and that can only be good for farmers and the future of the planet.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20968076

And if people eat a bit less meat in their diet overall, that's no bad thing.

Those on the bottom-most rung clearly have very limited choices and this thread isn't aimed at them. But most people have the luxury of choice in many areas of their spending, and responsibility for the knock-on consequences of those choices.

Martin