My local town has something like 10 salons among a total shop population of perhaps 75 small stores. They all seem to be doing very well. The two small bookstores, however - not so much.
The two small bookstores, however - not so much.
It sounds, from this point of view, exactly like a French small town - the one I know best, anyway.
I'd bet lonely people getting a haircut for social contact helps business... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I remember a recent survey found that hairdressers were one of the occupations most happy in their work - no doubt to do with the element of creativity and the varied social inteaction.
Welcome to ET - I've made the same move from UK to France - see signature.
Of course I spent the time at the French hairdresser recently explaining to him that the French economy wasn't in such a bad shape and the UK's wasn't so great and there were a lot of good things about France in comparison with the UK, it's medical system - not waiting months to see a dermatologist for example - the transport systems, etc.
Things ripple out from here :-) Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
While I am truly sad to say that independent booksellers... are disappearing.
And the way books are sold has an influence on what books are sold. Independent booksellers increase the chances for some worthwhile books that are not getting a big promotional boost, for example. So direct buying and small bookseller buying are not (qualitatively) interchangeable, imo.
Also, Bookselling doesn't necessitate much human input ; your average FNAC sells a lots of books with few employees, whereas haircutting is a labor intensive activity.
What it means is that when inequality rises, and the lower salaries are rising slower than average income, such labor intensive activities are becoming cheaper : the cost of an haircut is based on that of low wage labour. So haircutting is getting an price advantage... and rises. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Not to speak of the fact that the large bookstores used to employ people who knew about books, but now selling books is at FNAC is just another low-paying, unskilled service job. Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
Not that I don't like browsing in real bookshops and a Waterstones etc. can have a larger stock of specialist books, and seats and coffee :-) Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
