Shopping is streets behind in some things – but streets ahead in others

Not least because internet shopping has invaded the high street good and proper. Internet retailers have been doing their homework and boy, do they know how to get us to buy.

Take books. Type in a subject – any subject – and up comes a whole list of titles that you never dreamt were in print, plus the discounted prices – and a list of the books other people who have bought the first list of books have also decided to buy.

Tempting or what? Before you know it, you’ve been had. All you have to do is wait for the parcels to be flung down outside your door. It feels like Christmas already.

Websites are really clever, too, when it comes to clothes. Type in your chosen item, and there’s a list of other items that you can wear it with, to make your ‘capsule’ wardrobe complete.

These internet retailers have much more control over our spending habits than any shop ever will. They track our every penny, automatically.

They don’t need to walk around the store to see what we are looking at. Every click makes an indelible record on our accounts.

They track how long we are looking, where we move to, whether or not we decide to buy – and, if we don’t decide to buy on the first visit, they bring all our previous choices back to our attention the next time we log in.

Jersey retailers told us this week that they are really struggling this year to compete. The Jersey Chamber of Commerce goes one step further. By killing the high street, we consumers are depriving our community of jobs for those still at school, as well as jobs for the future.

I’m not disputing that we consumers have a role to play. But there are other factors at work here, too.

For one thing, our high street shopkeepers have many of the balls in their own court. There will always be a place in our hearts, surely, for a good old rummage in the bargain bin. That’s why they call it retail ‘therapy’.

And there’s nothing quite like trying on half a dozen pairs of jeans and giving them all back to the assistant when you find none of them fit, or saying ‘just looking, thanks’ when they ask if you’d like some help. You can’t do that online.

Likewise, choosing three books for the price of two, paying for them then and there, and then curling up on the sofa and reading all three at once, that very evening.

And the best thing is that no one will remember where you’ve been, or what you’ve been looking at. And they won’t come pestering next time you walk into the shop.

So shouldn’t the shopkeepers be looking at what we can do in their high street that we can’t do online and capitalising on those products, those experiences?

The States, too, have a part to pay in boosting local firms. You only have to look at the recent influx of UK big brand coffee bars, with their giant ‘regular’ lattes with fancy names.

OK, I know some people can’t live without them. But shouldn’t Economic Development be nurturing the local businesses, instead of cultivating UK-based firms who don’t even pay tax here?

My guess is that the high street will change. I don’t think it will ever disappear completely, but there may well be a consumer move towards the internet for some goods and the high street for others.

It is up to those who have the power to offer the correct balance.