The UK Government is exploring plans to impose higher taxes on Amazon to support Britain’s ailing high streets.

If enacted, other countries will likely follow suit.

Amazon sales revenue now stands at $604 BILLION a year. That’s equates to roughly: –

• $50 Billion a month
• $12 Billion a week
• $1.6 Billion a day, or
• $71 million every hour

The average person/consumer spends $2,735 (£2,100) per year on Amazon.

It’s not just Amazon. Consumers will spend $70 Billion this year on the Temu and Shein Apps.

Can you imagine the positive impact of every person in your community spending $2,735 a year in your local High Street, not on Amazon?

80,000 people live in Chatham (Medway, UK) where I live. If just 40,000 people spent £2,000 a year in the local high street that would inject or bring £80 Million pounds into Chatham High Street. This would completely change and transform Chatham High Street creating a truly vibrant place, new jobs, and economic vitality. The leveraging opportunities would be limitless and exciting for Council, developers, traders, and residents alike.

Taxing Amazon is unlikely to achieve radical increases in footfall, trade, and the regeneration of our High Streets.

Of course, the persistent problem for Governments, the Circular Economy, Climate Change action, and Net Zero ambitions is that online shopping is addictive and highly profitable. 1 in 3 people in the western world now openly admit to being addicted to online shopping.

Jeff Bezos has claimed Online Shopping.

Amazon has an inventory that dwarfs anything on any High Street, including the major supermarkets. The lure of Amazon is that it has it and that you can get it the very next day, sometimes within a few hours.

Consumers generally want the best of both worlds. They like the idea of shopping online because it’s so convenient. But they still also want to purchase in the air-conditioned mall, or High Street. British High Streets are now mainly estate agents, charity shops and coffee shops, plus boarded-up failed businesses.

Have convenience and technology killed the High Street?

No-one has got all of this worked out – or even all or some of the answers. We are all on the journey of modern post-covid life. And, at the same time trying to achieve Net Zero. These are unchartered waters.

Perhaps the 1st and most important step (or solution) is to educate Councils and communities on the negative impacts and problems generated from shopping online…. all those Amazon parcel delivery vans clogging up and congesting suburban streets, the unprecedented volumes of trashed plastic and clothing heading to landfill or being shipped overseas, the financial burden on small business of our ever-increasing online purchases and the isolation and loneliness epidemic associated with the loss of sociable community spaces.

The global supermarket giant Tesco says, ‘Every little helps’. Where we can, perhaps we should all shop local and support local, small, and family businesses. And perhaps even say no to buying online.

Enjoying Sourceable articles? Subscribe for Free and receive daily updates of all articles which are published on our site

Want to grow your sales, reach more new clients and expand your client base across Australia’s design and construction sector?

Advertise on Sourceable and have your business seen by the thousands of architects, engineers, builders/construction contractors, subcontractors/trade contractors, property developers and building industry suppliers who read our stories across the civil, commercial and residential construction sector