Amazon to invest £40bn in UK - with more warehouses and thousands of new jobs
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the investment into Amazon's third-biggest market after the US and Germany was a "massive vote of confidence in the UK as the best place to do business".
"It means thousands of new jobs - real opportunities for people in every corner of the country to build careers, learn new skills, and support their families," said Sir Keir.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said it was a "powerful endorsement of Britain's economic strengths".
We use Amazon regularly for all kinds of bits and pieces where we prefer to avoid trawling around shops. The shop window has been replaced by the laptop or phone screen we might say.
Nearly 150 years ago, Emile Zola saw a shopping revolution caused by ticketed prices clearly visible through the shop window. He saw success depending solely on what he called the orderly working of a sale.
He then went on to sing the praises of the plain figure system. The great revolution in the business sprung from this fortunate inspiration. If the old-fashioned small shops were dying out it was because they could not struggle against the low prices guaranteed by the tickets. The competition was now going on under the very eyes of the public; a look into the windows enabled them to contrast the prices; every shop was lowering its rates, contenting itself with the smallest possible profit; no cheating, no stroke of fortune prepared long beforehand on an article sold at double its value, but current operations, a regular percentage on all goods, success depending solely on the orderly working of a sale all the larger from the fact of its being carried on in broad daylight.
Emile Zola - Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)
He then went on to sing the praises of the plain figure system. The great revolution in the business sprung from this fortunate inspiration. If the old-fashioned small shops were dying out it was because they could not struggle against the low prices guaranteed by the tickets. The competition was now going on under the very eyes of the public; a look into the windows enabled them to contrast the prices; every shop was lowering its rates, contenting itself with the smallest possible profit; no cheating, no stroke of fortune prepared long beforehand on an article sold at double its value, but current operations, a regular percentage on all goods, success depending solely on the orderly working of a sale all the larger from the fact of its being carried on in broad daylight.
Emile Zola - Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)
What we see with Amazon is that orderly working of a sale taken to an extreme Zola could not have foreseen, although he clearly saw some strong hints of it.
He had put his elbows on the table, and was staring at her so hard that she felt uneasy. “But look here,” resumed he; “you who know the business, do you think it right that a simple draper’s shop should sell everything? Formerly, when trade was trade, drapers sold nothing but drapery. Now they are doing their best to snap up every branch and ruin their neighbors. The whole neighborhood complains of it, for every small tradesman is beginning to suffer terribly. This Mouret is ruining them. Bédoré and his sister, who keep the hosiery shop in the Rue Gaillon, have already lost half their customers; Mademoiselle Tatin, at the under-linen warehouse in the Passage Choiseul, has been obliged to lower her prices, to be able to sell at all. And the effects of this scourge, this pest, are felt as far as the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, where I hear that Vanpouille Brothers, the furriers, cannot hold out much longer. Drapers selling fur goods — what a farce! another of Mouret’s ideas!” “And gloves,” added Madame Baudu; “isn’t it monstrous? He has even dared to add a glove department! Yesterday, as I was going along the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, I saw Quinette, the glover, at his door, looking so downcast that I hadn’t the heart to ask him how business was going.” “And umbrellas,” resumed Baudu; “that’s the climax! Bourras feels sure that Mouret simply wants to ruin him; for, in short, where’s the rhyme between umbrellas and drapery? But Bourras is firm on his legs, and won’t allow himself to be beggared. We shall see some fun one of these days.”
Emile Zola - Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)
He had put his elbows on the table, and was staring at her so hard that she felt uneasy. “But look here,” resumed he; “you who know the business, do you think it right that a simple draper’s shop should sell everything? Formerly, when trade was trade, drapers sold nothing but drapery. Now they are doing their best to snap up every branch and ruin their neighbors. The whole neighborhood complains of it, for every small tradesman is beginning to suffer terribly. This Mouret is ruining them. Bédoré and his sister, who keep the hosiery shop in the Rue Gaillon, have already lost half their customers; Mademoiselle Tatin, at the under-linen warehouse in the Passage Choiseul, has been obliged to lower her prices, to be able to sell at all. And the effects of this scourge, this pest, are felt as far as the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, where I hear that Vanpouille Brothers, the furriers, cannot hold out much longer. Drapers selling fur goods — what a farce! another of Mouret’s ideas!” “And gloves,” added Madame Baudu; “isn’t it monstrous? He has even dared to add a glove department! Yesterday, as I was going along the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin, I saw Quinette, the glover, at his door, looking so downcast that I hadn’t the heart to ask him how business was going.” “And umbrellas,” resumed Baudu; “that’s the climax! Bourras feels sure that Mouret simply wants to ruin him; for, in short, where’s the rhyme between umbrellas and drapery? But Bourras is firm on his legs, and won’t allow himself to be beggared. We shall see some fun one of these days.”
Emile Zola - Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)
7 comments:
The death of the High Street small shops was ignored as Chain and Department Stores elbowed them aside.
Which is why anguish about the 'Death of the High Street' fail to move me. The elbower is now elbowed.
Jobs are a cost.
"thousands of new jobs - real opportunities for people in every corner of the country to build careers, learn new skills, and support their families,"
More TTK bollox: Amazon is a champion of zero-hours contracts, self-employed staff and any other means to bend employment law to their own advantage.
In our extended family, it seems to divide along gender lines; when something is needed, the menfolk tend to default to Amazon while those of a female persuasion set about planning a trip to the shops to inspect real goods in tangible form.
By coincidence, my mother has just recounted a conversation she had with a neighbour who was bewailing the closure of their local ironmonger’s shop. My mother asked her whether she had had a chance to say goodbye to the owner before he left:
“Oh, I never went in there myself; my son orders everything I need on Amazon.”
(When my mother had difficulty choosing a new bolt for a tricky bathroom door, the chap invited her into the staff lavatory to demonstrate the workings of the door lock he had recently fitted there; you don’t get that level of customer service from Jeff Bezos!)
DJ - it doesn't bother me either. The High Street will adapt as it has done for ages now.
Anon - and Amazon knows it.
Jannie - and robots, more and more robots.
Macheath - this video about second-hand clothes suggests that the market for them mainly comes via women as men tend to keep their clothes until they aren't saleable -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdaP0HnzGuo
""sprung": shoot the translator and editor. It's "sprang".
dearieme - the translator was probably Ernest Vizetelly, but he wouldn't have made a mistake like that, so it may have been the system which converted his text to digital. I used to report errors obviously introduced that way, but I ignore them now, there are too many.
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