High streets are pushing shoppers away

SIR – Needing some wire and fixtures for climbing plants, I set off for the shops on Saturday (Letters, June 11).

I visited three different shops and would have tried a fourth, but could not find anywhere nearby to park. After two hours I returned home with a quarter of the items I needed.

It took me less than three minutes to find and order the items online, at a fraction of the price offered in the shops – and they were delivered by 10am next morning. Susan Offen

Oxford

SIR – There has been much clamour about the closure of high-street shops.

However, when I have tried recently to purchase items from shops – particularly electrical and technical equipment – I have been told by staff that their stores are “out of stock, but we can order the item for you”.

Surely the point of a high-street retailer is to be able to offer the goods one wants to purchase at that moment – otherwise one might just as well stay at home and shop online. Gareth Light

Westcliff-on-sea, Essex

SIR – As a specialist retailer open 60 hours a week over seven days, I know the trouble we are in. Customers will have to accept that I now stock less.

However, when the internet has done for us all, customers will no longer be able to pop in on a whim or get forgotten items at the last minute.

Support your local independent retailer or lose us. Tax changes will not work; local support will. Reginald Chester-sterne

Beaulieu, Hampshire

SIR – Can’t the Government introduce a tariff on goods sold over the internet, equivalent to business rates paid by high-street shops? Peter Swift

Ruthin, Denbighshire

SIR – Rosemary Corbin (Letters, June 9) points out that a trip to a good shopping town, with the expense involved, is not going to be undertaken just for “window shopping”.

On my rare trips to London I gravitate towards the large stores. However, instead of buying the items I want there, with the difficulty of carrying them home, I write down their codes and, on my return, order the whole lot online. Nothing beats seeing the goods on the shelves. Georgie Moore

Mere, Wiltshire