There is a current ‘commonsense’ view that says: independent retailer = good; big chain = bad.
e.g. bookstores. So the argument goes, independent booksellers like Broadway Books on Broadway Market in Hackney, or Metropolitan Books on Exmouth Market in Clerkenwell are important for the character of such market streets. And also due to the knowledge of the booksellers themselves who have taken the time to stock their shops with an eclectic mix of interesting titles rather than simply stocking the current bestsellers.
Similarly foodstores: local shops being key to the community and their absence enforces on people reliance on their cars to travel to out of town shopping malls and leaving isolated those without access to their own motor transport.
But, since leaving employment and (shortly) becoming a full time student again, the issue of cost is striking. I could buy the last three volumes of Proust from Broadway Books for £30 – or from Amazon for just under £19. Not a trivial difference. Similar differences pertain between the Morrisons at one end of my road and the local Turkish shop at the other.
I have been intrigued, and somewhat inspired by Kate Soper’s ideas about internalising externalities in Soundings e.g. the idea that some cyclists might choose to cycle not only due to the (private) benefit that they get from enjoying cycling, less stressful and faster travel but also due to a desire to take account of the (public) benefit that accrues to everyone else from them cycling (e.g. less pollution, fewer people on already crowded buses and tubes).
So should I similarly internalise the externality of the benefit to everyone of independent retailers existing, albeit selling goods at a higher cost than they can be obtained elsewhere. Because if people don’t support their local independent stores then they will vanish and our high streets will simply become identical, with the same chains present everywhere.
It feels like a luxury I can’t afford at the moment…. but if everyone thinks like that….
And is there really a benefit from high streets/ markets full of independent retailers – or is just better to accept that where economies of scales can bring lower prices, then that is something we all benefit from (given that availability is hardly reduced as a result)?
