JB HI FI - here we come!

Oh god doog, have you any financial sense.

It is only a job if it is self supporting, & actually makes a profit for the owner, in the ABCs case the tax payer.

It is perhaps a pity Foxy & o sung wu will no longer have the pleasure of browsing ABC shops, however I have much better things to do with my money than pay ABC staff to chat to them.

If we are going to employ people in useless activities, we might as well have them paint rocks white, it would cost less of the money we don't have to waste.

It's not conventional online shopping that's the main threat, it's digital downloads. Still, they do sell merchandise other than DVDs, so I hope that with fewer shops they'll be able to continue on for a while yet.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Shockadelic, the online ABC shop hasn't failed. Online's going to be an increasing part of their business as the physical stores close.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

doog, the way things are meant to work, having fewer employees is good because it frees them up to do something more productive.

The trouble is: at the moment businesses aren't spending enough money employing people because consumer demand is depressed, and governments aren't doing so because they erroneously believe that trying to run a surplus would be good for the economy, despite the reverse being true at this stage of the economic cycle. So we're stuck with unemployment, and more likely than not we're no closer to an actual surplus.

Aidan, I responded to other people's comments which seemed to indicate the online store had failed ("has the gamble of online shopping been worth the punt?").

But even so, it will fail sooner or later.
For the reasons I stated.
It has no validity in and of itself.

You can probably find everything they sell elsewhere, with 1000's of additional items not available at ABC.

They suffer the delusion that "ABC" is a brand with some intrinsic value, like Tiffany's or Harley Davidson.

People will buy from those stores just because of the name (what it represents).
Not so with "ABC".
It has no brand value or meaning.
R.I.P. A.B.C.

Shops are open to make money, and plenty are still doing so in spite of OLS.

Successful shops do this by selling what buyers want. Music and video stores are going out of business all around the world because people are buying it in digital form. Shops that survive change their business model, as the ABC has just done.

Suze, anyone who thinks online shopping supports the same amount of jobs is kidding themselves.

Browsing online fir your items costs nothing to the shop owner, except for the likes of car sales.com.

Self serve checkouts are just one example of the impact online shopping is having the noose is tightening.