Is COVID the death of our creepy clone cities?
Let´s hope it is and focus on the opportunities for a better city life!
COVID 19 is happening worldwide and freezes large parts of the local retail business into a forced lockdown. We already know that there will be a big wave of bankruptcy to hit local retail in 2022.
But is that really a bad thing?
Now before you start shouting at me in the comments, please hear me out first!
When did you notice that at one point, the shopping districts of almost every city started to look the same? Uniform chain stores started to supersede and eliminate small specialized and owner-managed retail. That change was not only creeping upon us but for me, it was creepy as hell to watch! And not necessarily a good thing for the city.
Even more so when that large shopping mall was erected at the outskirts and rammed the stoke deep into the living heart of your city, all of a sudden, you realized that all of the fun stuff was gone - replaced by cheap clones with ripped of junk of all the same other clone collections. Who needs another Primark anyway?
Quality and individual style were substituted by lookalike brainwashed mass uniforms a long time ago.
That one small trend that started in a shady back-alley in New York City that started a fever hype was suddenly beaten through the biggest cities and into the smallest remote towns worldwide.
That led to a host of new problems for the whole industry. Prices started dropping because everything looked the same and became interchangeable. Quality brands were copied so fast had they had a hard time standing out of all the trash. Suddenly everyone could look like a Hollywood superstar. At least until the washing machine made short work of your 3 Dollar t-shirt in the first go. But what the consumer did not know is that this was a deliberate part of the calculation. At 3 Dollars, no one expected that t-shirt to last a lifetime.
The devil´s circle grabs hold of the whole industry.
The consumer did not see that the smaller margins were being pushed over to the business's production site. The race for the lowest production prices was on (and still is going on today!). Production was relocated from Europe to China and Bangladesh, no matter the consequences!
If you can sell a 3 Dollar t-shirt and still make a profit, then something is really wrong with the supply chain.
That item needs to be shipped worldwide and sold in a large chain store with insane rent. And you never wondered what that means for the quality of that shirt. If you had, maybe the industry would not have pushed itself into such a horrible situation. Of course, it was much more convenient to ignore and overlook the trouble the people in these production facilities face when they do not even earn enough to afford proper housing. The factory owner hardly makes enough to sustain the factory building.
Remember that factory collapsing in Rana Plaza, Bangladesh in 2013?
That´s the problem when every pupil can afford to spend another 3 Dollars on a new shirt for the next party every week. Wearing anything twice was fast becoming a no-go. As if everyone was some Hollywood celebrity or royal brat.
And what does it say about luxury brands like Prada, Gucci, Versace, and Moncler, if they are producing in the same factory as Primark and Walmart?
Hail the Instagram Influencer selfie society!
I don´t know about you, but watching our cities' rundown and the rise of all those 1 Dollar junk stores did not make me happy in the least. Let´s be honest for a second: As most owner-managed retail had already been eliminated a long time ago, there is not much good left for COVID to burn down anyway. I won´t shed a tear for any junk store that goes down now. On the contrary, I rejoice it!
I don´t know about you, but I am totally fed up with 1 Dollar stores, China Shops, Shicha Bars, and Fast Food Shags taking over the streets.
I want to see some more quality and individualism back in my life! And as much as this new lockdown reality might look like a creepy episode of Black Mirror, it opens up a ton of new opportunities for startups from all aspects of life in our society.
Stay tuned and follow my next post, where I will tell you a bit more about the state of the art concept stores and the awesome opportunities for the future of retail.
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Thorsten Hunsicker is a serial entrepreneur, multichannel eCommerce and online marketing expert for more than 15+ years, home office junkie, and proud dad of two super kids.
AXE THE TRASH is the companion blog for both my startups FakeScouts.com - Never buy a fake product again and ViSPR.net - a do-follow backlink exchange network for partner pages that solves SEO for people that don´t like SEO in a heartbeat. So make sure to check them out ;)
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