Cheap shops

                        Cheap Shops

A good indicator of the health of the economy for most people is what is going on in the high streets of towns. This tends to reflect what is happening in the world at large and at the moment many high streets in the UK look pretty grim despite all this talk of recovery. The sight of  boarded up shop is still common. It is as if the enterprise has gone out of the economy. One aspect of the recession has been an explosion of cheap shops and for most people still in work this is one thing that has reduced the cost of living. We have the pound shop, the 99p store and poundland along with many other independent 99p or one pound chains. A huge range of goods are displayed there and of course nobody now asks their provenance. In fact few care about why the goods are so cheap but only the price. One of the signs of this recession is that even the Middle classes now go to poundland. Before the crisis that would have been unthinkable.

However these sops offer a range of goods from kitchen utensils to toys and garden accessories. All are offered at the standard rates of one pound. People are going there to stock up on all the essentials. Now the range even included such staples as cooked food ad it is possible to buy pizza salads and cooked chicken wings in some of these outlets. In fact there is a never ending streams of traffic in these places and this industry is one that has certainly not been suffering from the recession. So difficult has it become that even the major British supermarkets such as Tescos, Sainsburys and Morrisons have started price wars among themselves.

Certainly one effect of the recession has been an explosion of these shops and despite the so called recovery which for most people does not feel like a recovery with jobs still being very insecure, it looks as if for the moment these shops are here to stay.