Thursday, August 22, 2013
Not the same problem
Reading a not especially interesting article on increased business at British retail stores. Noticed something salient in the accompanying picture.... decided to test the idea.
Sure enough. You can try it yourself. Google "High street empty shops" and you'll get lots of pictures of boarded-up British shops. ALL OF THESE PICTURES CONTAIN PEOPLE. Now google "Main street empty stores" and you'll get lots of pictures of boarded-up American shops. NONE OF THESE PICTURES CONTAIN PEOPLE.
You can do a similar test with Google Street View. Pick a mid-sized town in Britain and US. Google Street will plop you into a downtown location if you don't specify an address. Slide along a couple of streets from the plop-down. You'll see lots of walkers in Britain, zero in America.
Clearly the two countries have entirely separate problems with downtown retail.
British downtowns are full of walking people who look like they have a few pounds to spend. A shop has a sporting chance, which of course doesn't guarantee success.
American downtowns are empty. Even if shops were open, they wouldn't catch the eye of a customer with money to spend, because nobody is walking.
¶ 8:50 AM 
