General

The end of retail as we know it

last week staying with my mum in London…

I’ve got an office set up in her spare room which I use when I’m in town..

I powered up my computer and started writing a newsletter…

And then my keyboard stopped working…

I unplugged it and plugged it back in….

Then 30 minutes later the same thing happened…

Also this keyboard has a couple of keys which stick….

When it comes to keyboards and mice I’m very particular…

I find that I need to try out the keyboard first to see how it feels..

So I decided to brave PC World to try out a few high-end keyboards for myself..

I say brave PC World because I hate this store…

The staff are next to useless..

You asked them any kind of technical question and they just give you a blank look….

There’s also loud music, mixed in with noise from the TV sets….

Overall it’s a horrible experience…..

I went straight to the gaming section to have a look at the keyboards…

By the way I’ve always found that the gaming keyboards and mice seem to be the highest quality…

Even though I never play computer games….

Eventually I found a keyboard which felt really nice to type on….

The RAZER BlackWidow Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard….

They do come up with some very strange names for these keyboards…

Just a side note I can definitely recommend this keyboard…

Probably one of the best I’ve ever used…

But then it should be for £150!!

Anyway there I was in line waiting to pay for my new keyboard when I spotted some items on sale…

Or so I thought….

There were some things in the containers I was interested in…

One of them being a Google home assistant…

The sign on the side of the containers said “SAVE”  in big letters…

However there was no price…

I asked a member of staff if he knew how much these items were….

All I got was a blank look…

I asked if they could find out how the Google home was…

I was told I would have to take it to the till and they would have to scan it for me to do a price check….

Forget it I wasn’t interested…

This is one of the reasons why I hate PC World, and similar shops like this…

They have zero customer service…

And leave me with that feeling that I never want to come back….

However I think this is a general trend in retail….

After all there has to be a reason why…

In the UK 87% of UK retail purchases made online!!!

(I even bought my Tesla online!!)

People just prefer to shop online now…

And this is why a lot of household names are going out of business…

For example in the UK..

*Woolworths

*Toys “R” Us

*Maplin’s (UK RadioShack)

*BHS

*Blockbuster Video

This is just a few of the retailers that have gone out of business in the last few years…

Why?

Because they didn’t adapt….

People don’t go to big stores anymore to buy products…

They don’t need retail they need service….

As an example I went to a closed shop in the UK recently called next…

Again not a great experience….

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a shop where you are greeted by a personal shopper…

Someone who would help you personally, almost like a personal stylist…

They would make suggestions about what would suit you…

My vision for this would be they would have an iPad…

They were type your details in and your purchase history would come up…

They would know your shoe size dress size…

And the type of colours and products that you like…

This would provide a service which you can’t get online…

You could do a similar thing in PC World…

Instead of having a vast warehouse of the shop…

Why not have a much smaller shop…

And offer a more one-to-one service….

To help people who don’t have much technical experience….

Similar I guess to what the Apple stores do….

I predict that we will continue to see a lot of well-known retail stores go out of business in the next few years.

However I do think we will see a new breed of retail stores opening soon which will be much more of a one-on-one service….

Let’s see what happens…..

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I was planning to fit some movie reviews in this weeks newsletter..

However it is getting a little bit long…

So talk I will about those next week…

Have a great week whatever you’re doing…

From a cold windy and sunny France…

BTW: had some amazing rainbows over the house today, check out my Facebook profile for photos…

Talk soon,

Sarah