Retail Therapy

RPMThe early sixties are seen by many as a time of radical socialchange, what is often less appreciated is the dramatic economicchanges that occurred. The then future-to-be Prime Minister ofBritain, Conservative Ted Heath was then "President of the Board ofTrade". His principal achievement was the abolition of resale pricemaintenance, carried out in the teeth of opposition from smallshopkeepers.RPM had long been condemned by Labour, but had previously beendefended by the Conservatives. Most small shopkeepers saw in RPMtheir last chance of coexisting with supermarkets and discountstores. Even with the protection of price fixing, the number ofshops with fewer than ten branches declined from 503,000 in 1950 to483,000 in 1961.The National Chamber of Trade bravely promisedto "move heaven and earth to prevent this bill being adopted.Eventually RPM was largely repealed in 1964, after supermarketlobbying.Later, forced industrial decline in the Britain in the 1980sreleased large areas of land that were used for supermarketretailing. Supermarkets spread into Scotland and Wales from England;Asda was once just in northern England, and Sainsbury just in theSouth. Now they are international, opening branches in Europe, eastAsia, and elsewhere. Supermarket opening hours have lengthened; manyopen 24 hours a day. This has harmed many small shops, which openedfrom very early to very late, but not for the full 24 hours.Supermarkets gained massive economies of scale by this expansion,and also `buying power', the power to force down wholesale pricesfrom farms, whilst demanding higher quality, standardised produce.Consumers gained cheap all-year-round fruit and vegetables, but therural economy has lost money and jobs, and local villagers using thesmall shop have been replaced by commuters using the supermarket.Supermarket price wars, whilst not aimed at small shops, hurt themin the fall-out as items like bread or baked beans are reduced to afew pennies, far below cost.Perhaps it is time to look again at RPM.Sources:The Ecology of Food Deserts – Hilary Shaw, University of Leeds(1998-2004)Time-Politics and Prices(1964)