So heres how it goes.....
Local retailer buys in some top quality Christmas trees. They're not cheap, but the quality is brilliant. To make a modest profit, after paying for rent, rates, electricity, staff, National Living Wage, Pension Contributions, statutory paternity pay et al, she prices them at a little over £200. Local shoppers come in and admire the tree in the shop, where they can check it out in the flesh (plastic?). Then they go home and Google it. For £99, there is the same tree, for sale from a warehouse dahn sarf, run by Trotters Independant Trading. As they have less overheads, and employ Romanians in the warehouse on the QT, they can just about scrape a profit.
Next year, local retailer buys in some cheaper trees from China. Not near as good, but she can sell them for £75 and still make some profit. Though she had to let young Jenny go as things were gettling a bit tight. Meanwhile, dahn sarf, TIT are selling the same Chinese trees, with a CE mark (Chinese export) for £50.
The following year, on the brink of bankruptcy, the local retailer buys in a load of dodgy trees from the dark web. They have no labels, let alone CE markings. She manages to sell a few at £25 each. But within a week, there has been a spate of house fires all over Caithness as the cheap power supplies explode in the middle of the night and burn 'e hoose doon.
The next year, local shoppers are dismayed to find the shop closed. The retailer was sued, but had no money left anyway. Meanwhile, TIT moved onto the next big thing. Shoppers, both high street and online found the only way they could buy a Christmas tree was to send for it to China themselves. Having sent their money, they then wondered why no tree arrived, and why the local Trading Standards said they could do nothing for them.
So they all lamented how good things were in 'e good old days, when you could buy things on 'e High Street.
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