My new book Closed for Good? The “Retail Apocalypse” in Britain since 2005 is almost entirely about chain retailers, which matter more individually to the country as a whole than any independent shop. Some of the factors which have ruined them – not all, as I argue in the book – affect small businesses too. A butcher succumbs to competition from supermarkets; an electrical retailer can’t beat the internet; a dry cleaner sees declining trade after pandemic lockdowns trigger a shift away from traditional business dress.
I mention, too, that in the handful of years after the pandemic, as uncertainty over big-ticket purchases continues, most of my local independent kitchen retailers have shut up shop – and another sector hit hard by supermarkets, the off-licence drinks trade.
We do eat out and drink out more, but not enough to compensate for all the retail jobs lost; and a community with depleted retail footfall can’t always sustain those either. In central Ramsgate, even Subway couldn’t keep going.
