Comment by frereubu
20 hours ago
I'm in the UK, and I've found that pretty much anything I can get on Amazon I can also get at John Lewis. It's probably more expensive - I'm in the lucky situation that I'm not particularly price-sensitive - but I much prefer the feeling of buying from JL. Very occasionally I'll buy something from Amazon like photo paper or some small gizmo that's difficult to find elsewhere. The one kind of physical shop I really miss is the kind of place where you can buy one screw, nail or picture hook etc. I hate the number of 10-packs of things I get where I only need one. (Luckily I live in a block of flats where there's a good community, so often I get those for free just by asking on our Signal group!)
> The one kind of physical shop I really miss is the kind of place where you can buy one screw, nail or picture hook etc.
So much agreement! I have a bunch of obscure parts like 99 wooden dowels from when I needed one and had to buy 100.
Screwfix is sometimes OK for this, but I still end up in situations like the above where I have 99 wooden dowels that will remain in my garage for all time.
(For what it's worth, I also completely agree with Amazon vs stores like John Lewis etc, I haven't bought anything from Amazon for years now, and definitely don't miss it at all)
A cheaper alternative is Argos for a lot of things.
Argos, Poundland, Tesco, Lidl…
Big surprise when I moved to Germany was that there's a Woolworth's brand here that survived independently to the one in the UK which closed decades ago.
> The one kind of physical shop I really miss is the kind of place where you can buy one screw, nail or picture hook etc.
So much nostalgia for these shops. A man with a posh, sparkling clean apron knowing exactly what you need or mean. In and out in under a minute or two having parted with just 30p
Screwfix are actually pretty close in terms of service. Their staff are pretty patient with people and quite helpful. They mostly only sell packs of things though (and wow fixings got expensive... anyway. And it's ironic that the "trades" brand of the group that owns B&Q has better customer service than B&Q...)
Spending 30p in a minute means the store's gross revenue including cost of goods sold is at most $18.00 per hour, which is already less than a living wage for one person.
30p back in the early 90s, I should have specified...
The shop also sold more expensive things like small appliances and hand tools etc