Retail Commerce

  • Secondhand retail

    A new charity shop has opened in Reading’s The Oracle shopping centre. I walked past it today and saw its brightly-coloured front and treasure trove of rails inside.

    It so happens on the floor above there’s a similar shop offering bulk-buy secondhand clothing as well. It seems as though secondhand is the trade of the moment.

    As well as charity type items, throwback shopping also includes popular releases of the 60’s and onwards, classic American candy, and furnishings that took homes by storm many decades ago.

  • Still signs of life out there

    The high street is a fascinating place, if you want to find something different.

    It may not be cheap, although sales help with that, but it’s an Aladdin’s cave if you’re willing to look.

    I looked in a ‘vintage’ fashion shop today and had a look at the array of items. It’s a similar setup.

    A Window Display
    Inside The Store
    A Box Of Ties
    Shelves Of Footwear

    It’s not my type, or style, but it makes sense; have it all on display for those who can throw it all together, to make an outfit.

    This is the sort of shopping that we have.

    It’s a sort of mix-and-match of things that makes up into what we had originally wanted.

    This is the sort of ‘style’ of a choosy and design-led market. It fits the bill for many of us.

  • New shops? No way!

    A new shop is a cause for regret or celebration depending on your habits.

    It may be a new pair of shoes that take your fancy, a record store with vinyl floor to ceiling, or a cafe with an array of nice new cakes.

    It’s up to us what our taste is.

    In some respects it isn’t however.

    A new store like Seoul Plaza is a prime example of what it means to have a distinct shopping experience at your doorstep.

    A shot of the store inside
    People lining up to pay

    It’s a convenient store selling a wide selection of Asian foods and sweet treats. The appeal is its difference, but also its culture.

    I’m no expert on it and I may be considered a ‘fan’, but stores like this offer what’s needed in a time of social multiculturalism.

    Our politics says it, so why not also our high street.

  • Innovating new ways to organise business: looking at pubs on site

    A new pub opening isn’t always a totally new event, if you consider that sometimes an old pub is reopened under new management.

    This is the case in Reading, Berkshire (a place I’ve reported from before), where The Sun Inn is due to reopen as The Rising Sun.

    It’s not just the new management that matters. As part of the Heartwood Collection, it’s also taking on a menu devised by Raymond Blanc, a famed name in the culinary world.

    This isn’t just a new venture here in the town, as it’s also something of a trend in the UK at large, where pubs are being reformed into eating venues as well as the traditional fare of drinking and casual musical entertainment, to make it a bit more of an experience.

    A side shot
    A sign
    Works at a side

    The pictures are only indicative of what it looks like now from outside, and its choice of graphic design points to a more shaped and relaxed appeal that is inviting as well as familiar for return visits.

    The site itself is allegedly an historic place of Reading’s oldest pub, and for a town that has a lot of them, it’s a good claim to fame.

    However, we’ll have to leave it to see if the proof is in the pudding

  • Are waiters-on-wheels our way forward?

    The concept of ordering “out” has developed leaps and bounds in our lifetime.

    Take a look out and you’ll see the variety of takeaways that we can walk into, and the few restaurants offering a walk-out service.

    There’s also the plethora of delivery apps that do it for us, now. The menu is on display, the offers are good, and the food is relatively cheap. It’s just a convenient way of getting the best of fast food and takeout you want.

    The development of food ordering and delivery is something to marvel at, considering our antipathy toward any kind of innovation that changes even the way we eat food.

    I say that in a personal sense because I know that most folks I’ve eaten with have a set preference for what they like. There’s a new trend on and maybe someone will take it up – but that’ll be it for a few months (or years) following.

    There are of course lots of development out there that we’ve seen, but our personal use of them differs between us, until we reach the guy who doesn’t want anything different. It is different, depending on how we see it.

    In other words, unless you were my friend I would have no idea how you consumed food – or even if it matters to you anymore what you like. It’s our choice to be like that, and it works out for us.

    The old tussle between the waiter and the restaurant goer is not a thing of the past, as if our ways of using each others services is always straightforward. The wages aren’t good, and, sometimes, the tips aren’t much better.

    It’s the way we get on that makes a good experience, dining out, and also whatever goes in, of course.

  • A sign of things to come?

    A new bar is opening near where I live but I have no intention to go there.

    It’s a great little outfit in a unit beneath some new apartments. It sits nicely on a corner looking out up and down a street rammed with night clubs and other shops.

    There’s a McDonald’s, too, and a Black Sheep Coffee outlet on another corner further up the road.

    It makes sense, then, to have a bar here and I’m sure the owners have done their due diligence in their research. It must make business sense to have a bar here that makes a splash on the scene. There’s a BrewDog pub in another part of town, and that does a roaring trade, also.

    I don’t mind going for a drink but I’m not a bar type of guy. I’ll sit in a pub a few times but mostly on my own, as I don’t like company when I’m drinking – and thinking.

    I like a chat as I walk about – and maybe a few words at work.

    I say this because a new bar is a new opportunity for many of those who like a new drinking hole to get in on.

    It makes a home out of a place that may not feel like it, sometimes, without someone talk to (it’s well known that bars are a good place for a chat).

    I looked at it today and it looks great. It appears a photographer was on site to deal with the promotional side of things, and a few members of staff hanging around (no doubt for extra training, as well).

  • Empty shops, empty hearts?

    I took an underground train to West Brompton station in London, yesterday, and photographed and videoed as I walked through.

    It’s an interesting part of London; a small neighbourhood, and a tranquil place to walk and pace yourself on an afternoon out.

    I say ‘tranquil’, because there’s also a surprising lack of activity. I say that, also, in view that many of its shop fronts have now been transformed, and look like houses, and not commercial spaces.

    These are examples of what is happening – and seen – across the country, and all across our towns and cities.

    I do not bemoan the arrival or emergence of phone or vape shops, for example, as these exhibit simplicity that we need. I like them because they are what I can head for in a straightforward way and makes my shopping experience easier, at least.

    It’s simple to find a phone shop these days, and to find what you want. It should be the case everywhere, and with everything.

    In times past, we have prospered over the simple things in life that brought us income and wealth. It wasn’t someone’s idea that we could ‘sell’ to the world, but staples that we brought in and sent out (sometimes in a stylised way).

    It’s our ideas that keep us here, but our trade that gets us places, and this is the truth with footfall. If there is sufficient here to engage the mind, and to open the wallet, it’s sufficient to get us out and about again.

    I don’t know if West Brompton or beyond seeks an answer as to its streets lined with houses in former shop units, as it may want that, but I doubt it’s nice to live around if what someone wants is a coffee, or a grocery shop to visit, or even an arcade, or something, to browse around.

    We are people who ‘look’, and it beats television, sometimes.

  • The ill-repute of a salmon

    A salmon doesn’t get far these days.

    Maybe up a stream, and far away, onto someone’s plate, but those ‘air miles’ don’t count for the kind of prestige a fish might want in its native stream.

    It’s a different matter entirely when people are out on the hunt, however, and want more from life – and the life around them.

    This is where salmon lose their footing, of course.

    In recent times, the salmon at Fortnum & Mason have come under their own criticism, as well.

    Salmon fishing at Fortnum & Mason

    Far from a river, and far from their habitat, they also have an indignity levelled over their implicit quality.

    The Daily Mail reported a story recently about its fish being questioned at the store in Piccadilly, over their heritage.

    It seems odd, to bring it up like that, but people want their facts (and a decent dinner, too!), so they’ll go extra lengths find out whatever it is they need to know.

    It raises issues over everyday items that we’re used to; where they come from, and what to expect, now that the law is more aware of these things.

    This is the stuff of shopping, after all, and of normal, everyday living.

    The law can’t ignore it.

    There’s nothing to stop an average fish-loving man, partial for a bit of salmon, from asking a few questions, and making a few inquiries about it.

    It keeps our salmon the best it can be, and makes our shopping experience easier, too.