China's SHEIN village

China has several towns which are famous for the production of particular items, just as cities in the UK used to be connected with particular industries e.g. textiles in Manchester, hats in Luton etc.

SHEIN is one of the most popular websites for buying low cost (and therefore low quality) items. 

There is a town in China which dedicates a great deal of manufacturing to producing items for this website.

This is a useful video describing the impact this has:

Thanks to Fiona Sheriff for the lead to this particular video.

Perfect for our unit on Fast Fashion with Year 8.

TEMU

This website explains the meaning of the logo for the site TEMU. We mentioned this in our Geography of Stuff unit.

TEMU is like a Chinese version of Amazon.

It sells a whole load of cheap tat that nobody really needs in the main, and its website/app is a confusing place where visitors are bombarded with short-term deals in an attempt to get them to overspend and add things to their basket.

Some detail:

The name “Temu” is an acronym for the company’s motto, “Team Up, Price Down.” This motto encapsulates the company’s core philosophy of leveraging economies of scale to generate savings. By amassing a critical mass of buyers and sellers, Temu can pass on the savings to its customers. Sellers are attracted to the large pool of buyers, who are in turn drawn to the wide selection of merchandise provided by a multitude of sellers.

Another example of our throwaway culture which is causing such environmental damage to the planet.

Departing Department Stores

This is a timely and important document for many of our cities.

Our department stores have faced unprecdented challenges in the last few years. 

We explore the changing High Street with Year 7.

We have lost some familiar names that have been around for decades, and this has also led to large and beautiful buildings sitting empty and under threat as they are unlikely to find new tenants in a hurry due to their size and central locations. The report includes stores from national chains such as Debenhams to more local and regional examples. In Norwich, for example, we have the Jarrold's stores which are an important part of the town centre's retail  offering. 

Many of these buildings could be described as 'cathedrals of commerce' with important architectural value.

Produced by Save Britain's Heritage.

Thanks to this tweet for the tipoff to the report, which is free to download.

Report issued by @SAVEBrit focuses on the crisis facing Britain’s handsome and varied department stores, urging imaginative reuse of our ‘cathedrals of commerce'. Full report here: https://t.co/u6oTeULz5c pic.twitter.com/2bvHg18Dom

— Philip Downer (@frontofstore) April 5, 2022

Follow the group on Twitter.

Retail Therapy

We mentioned this phrase when introducing our unit on the Geography of our Stuff.
The phrase 'retail therapy' is a relatively recent one.

This article traces it back to a piece in the Chicago Tribune at Christmas 1986, which included a memorable quote which has been much repeated

“We've become a nation measuring out our lives in shopping bags and nursing our psychic ills through retail therapy"

(Schmich).

This predated the internet of course.

This could equally apply to the UK as well as the USA of course.

One for our shopping unit...

UK Supermarkets - a new layer from the ESRI Living Atlas

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