Which Thanet Shop was this and more thought on our local shops

 As an independent shopkeeper in Thanet, I opened Michael's Bookshop in King Street Ramsgate in 1987, I have a sort of ghoulish fascination in the closure of shops in the UK at the moment.

The biggest problems are:

Out of town shopping centres, free parking, private policing are their attractions.

The knock on effect of so many shops having already closed that footfall is much less.

Rising expenses, particularly wages.

Online shopping.

At the moment we are seeing the other side of the in the bookshop, but I think the key is that shop prices, like for like, have to be mostly less than internet prices. 

So for us the main benefits at the moment are:

There is very little competition left in Southeast England in terms of other viable bookshops. Viable to me means a large range of desirable books that are priced less or about the same as it would cost to buy them online. 

In terms of something to do apart from food and clothing, there is very little left.

Smartphones and computers have resulted in universal literacy on one side with too much screen use including TV being bad for people's eyes, mental health and I suppose a sort of very low level anxiety and irritation that I recently experienced using a Kindle recently. By this I mean that while the Paperwhite Kindle didn't seem to be harming my eyes or brain, I wasn't confident about getting back to the page I was on and couldn't get it to read to me in an appropriate voice for the book.

Online secondhand book shopping and for that matter selling your books online is a bit of a minefield, I think the real issue is that most secondhand books sell for less than the cost of posting them.

The solution for real shops, especially in the non food sector is very difficult, the main problem is wages and so I suppose more automation may be the answer. The competition which is mostly online sellers like Amazon is based on automated warehousing, with a much smaller proportion of human workers to sales than you would get in a shop at the moment.

Obviously charity shops work because they are staffed by volunteers

Back to work in the bookshop tomorrow

 Shop 1 the name of the shop will do for an answer where in Thanet is a bonus. 

 Shop 2 the name of the shop will do for an answer where in Thanet is a bonus. 

 Shop 3 the name of the shop will do for an answer where in Thanet is a bonus. 

 Shop 4 the name of the shop will do for an answer where in Thanet is a bonus. 

 Shop 5 the name of the shop will do for an answer where in Thanet is a bonus. 

Shop 6 the name of the shop will do for an answer where in Thanet is a bonus. 

next yesterday's answers

 York St you can see the entrance to Charlotte Court in the middle

 The photos with the white or black captions on are getting a bit of a name for inaccuracy, the problem here is that with local history people do their best but sometimes more or different information comes along.

With this one I am going with facebook comment that says "Q2 - Hippolyte & Aldolphe Drincqbier's premises High Street, Ramsgate. 1901. L - R Mr. J. Hobday, Mr. E. Ashby, Mr. W.T. Stroud & Mr. Wells. (with thanks from Vincent). :) & the Ramsgate Historical Society.)

 This is Ramsgate Market under the old Ramsgate Town Hall, corner of Harbour St and Queen St

 Milton Sq

This one sums up the problem I face answering comments on Facebook, the right answer is, Margate Lido. Cliftonville Lido, Clifton Baths, Fort Promenade...

So if I don't know all the answers I have to look some up. What with Facebook only giving me comment notifications on a purely arbitrary basis, the cloud server I use to access the images with my phone playing up - I'm doing my best.