In Recent Years, Many Local Shops Have Closed Because Customers Travel To Large Shopping Centres | Band 8 IELTS Essay Sample

In recent years, many small local shops have closed because customers travel to large shopping centres or malls to do their shopping. Is this a positive or a negative development?

Here is a band 8 IELTS essay on this topic written by one of our students. Need help with IELTS writing? Get your IELTS essays, letters and reports corrected by me.

Band 8 IELTS essay sample

These days, many buyers prefer to shop in the giant shopping malls. As a result, several small shops have closed. While this phenomenon is beneficial for customers, it has a negative impact on small businesses and economy.

There are many benefits to this development to customers. The most significant benefit is that they can buy items at a cheaper rate. This is because there are many shops in the mall and people can buy where they get the best deal.  Another advantage is that it saves people’s valuable time as they do not have to go to multiple shops to buy different itmes, which is the case with small shops. To illustrate, most people in Mumbai prefer to shop for clothes, grocery items or electronics in shopping malls as they have a lot of options to choose from, and they also get huge discount on many items.

However, this trend has a negative impact on small supermarkets and national economy.  One major issue is that local people’s businesses suffer a huge loss as they are not able to compete with big shopping malls. As a consequence, they have to close down their businesses, and have to depend on the government’s aid.  Another crucial problem is that when these small shops are closed down, many people who were working in those shops become unemployeed. As a consequence, they become a burden on the nation because the government has to provide them with unemployement benefits.

In conclusion, while shopping in a big mall is advantageous for buyers as it saves their time and money, it has a drastic impact on small businesses, and country’s economy.

In recent years, many small local shops have closed because customers travel to large shopping centres or malls to do their shopping – Band 7.5 IELTS essay sample

Nowadays, many mom-and-pop stores are shutting down their businesses because customers have started visiting large shopping malls to do their shopping. In my opinion, this is a negative development. This essay will elucidate my side in detail.

There are several reasons why this is a negative development. To start with, this phenomenon is becoming one of the chief reasons behind the rising unemployment in many cities. Due to the loss of customer footfalls, these small shops are suffering from heavy losses and cannot afford to employ manpower; therefore, people are losing their jobs. This hurts the local economy. Worse still, jobless youth may engage in illegal activities to earn money.

Another problem that customers face due to the closure of small shops round the corner is that they often have to travel miles to do their shopping. Small shops used to be everywhere so when people needed something urgently, they could rush to the nearest store and buy it. Malls, on the other hand, may be several miles away. For instance, if any consumer has to buy a packet of biscuit, he will prefer to buy from the nearest small retail stores because it is not feasible and viable to travel to large shopping mall for a small purchase; hence, this development is also affecting customers’ convenience and time.

In conclusion, many small retail stores are getting closed these days because people have started visiting large shopping malls for their shopping; however, in my view, this is a negative development because it increases unemployment rate and criminal activities and affects people’s convenience.