Make shopping fun

RETAILERS complain that the crisis facing the High Street is the result of high business rates, parking costs and the competition of internet shopping.

All these factors are matters that retailers can do little or nothing about. However, they can do a great deal to attract customers back to their stores with some imaginative thinking and by putting in the effort to restore business.

In the U.S., shopping is entertainment and enjoyable. Shops open at 10am and close at 9pm. Parents return from work, pick up the children and visit a shopping centre for dinner, shopping and a movie.

Here, other than supermarkets, most shops close early, giving the average worker no time during the week to shop. No wonder people spend their evenings internet shopping.

I enjoy shopping, but on numerous occasions if the shop has not had my size or the colour I want, the sales assistant has simply told me to order it online.

Service in many shops is abysmal. You often can’t find an assistant to help you and you nearly always have to queue to pay for your purchases.

But online shopping is not the perfect answer for the customer, either. There are queues at the Post Office of people returning goods; bargains can turn out to be inferior copies and you have to wait in for goods to be delivered to avoid your parcel being left in the dustbin, the porch or dropped over a wall.

Retailers have a great deal to do to entice customers back, but sitting around blaming other factors will not cut the mustard.

R. PARKER, Derby.