Change with the times - or you'll have to fold your tent

The Tauranga CBD is in its death throes, which is patently obvious by the number of empty shops.

A final nail in the coffin will be the new shopping centre in The Lakes area and Kmart opening in Bethlehem.

Tauranga City Council - the cash cows - need to get their act to together and sort out the parking issues.

The retailers and other businesses are ratepayers and TCC punishes them for that by overpricing parking and driving shoppers to other districts.

Online shopping is another problem and the way round this could be for shopkeepers to stop whining about it and join in the game.

Why don't the retailers and businesses get together and set up a let's say a www.Devonport mall site? It is not so smart for everyone to have their own site. Each shop would have its own page on the site with all products and services offered including sales and deals and would start getting the benefits of online selling.

There would then be less of a problem with people show rooming if better prices were offered on the site. The old coterminous ways of doing business are gone - everybody has got to change with the times or fold their tent.

Alastair Bourne, Bethlehem.