Editorial: Hate those blimmin' computers

Thomson Bagley Auctions is closing its doors.

John Thomson hates computers.

John and his wife Ailsa are the oldest link with the Thomson Bagley Auction House which closed recently in Whangarei. John's father Eric started the business in 1923 with partner Les Bagley.

There is little that can rival the thrill of a live auction, of being able to check the items over before you bid, and being able to take the item home straight away.

Three reasons why a live auction is better than TradeMe.

And yet TradeMe - computers in other words - is the reason live auction houses are closing.

So I get why John Thomson hates computers. So do I, sometimes. Because TradeMe has cornered the market on the items that people also used to buy, sell and exchange through your daily newspaper. It is the way of the world, sure. But at some point, I think we are going to come back to live, local auctions. And newspapers.

It will happen when we realise that money we spend online on an item shipped from Auckland does not come back into our communities, something that is vital to the success of our towns' CBDs. All any online auction is doing though is meeting the demands of its audience. And what we want is choice. And a bargain. TradeMe is, after all, arguably the largest store in the country. Choices and bargains are also the reasons why we welcomed "big box retailers" into our towns. We knew what we were doing, by the way. Big box retail was never going to compliment small rival retailers. Never.

But we wanted more. More choice. More jobs.

It's never been a better time to be a consumer.

But it's a shame that in expanding our consumer choice, we slashed the scale of our local economies.

In many ways, as anger starts to build around what we should do to save our local CBDs, we only have ourselves to blame.