> How can you compete

Convince your neighbors that it's better to buy products they know from producers they trust from neighbors they live near.

It's small town and old school, but I don't see any other solution.

From a systems dynamics point of view this is unstable as defectors still enjoy the benefits of nice enviroments while paying non of the costs (e.g. go window shop and try things on for size, then by the stuff from a low cost dropshipper).

So unless your "convicing" is a serious eufimism for fairy drastic emforcement, the plan is doomed.

I agree. Every pound spent locally massively benefits society.

If good shops are available people will use them, if they provide what they're looking for.

I think we need the government to look at how retail works and what shoppers actually want.

There's not much local shops can do about the long tail, they can't stock everything. At the very least need to stop penalising them financially and allowing online retailers to compete on tax avoidance.

My father is old and naive. He was tricked into ordering fake "Yorkshire" tea bags from Temu. Fake tea bags for gods sake. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

We have no control on the quality coming from these sites. We can't even guarantee items are not made using slavery. Both Temu and Chien executives refused to reveal that in parliamentary investigations.

Stuff like that has to stop, standards needs to be universally applied or the bad will drive out the good.