Margate Joke Shop closing due to online retail pressure
06:00, 16 February 2020
After more than 40 years of trading, a much-loved novelty store is set to close its doors.
The owner of The Joke Shop in Margate says customers are now more likely to purchase the same products online, despite an increase in footfall in the last few years.
Thule Letts said: "People come in and they're so cheeky; they'll walk around and take a look at their phones, go 'oh all right' and walk straight back out.
"They'll go online, look through eBay or Amazon, and then tomorrow it'll be sent to them.
"It especially happens when they're looking at something which is £12-£15 online but it's £20 here, but they're not factoring in my rent, rates, overheads, and everything else."
The 49-year-old inherited the shop from her parents, who first started the business in Dreamland Theme Park in the 60s, selling novelties to visitors.
The business then moved to Arlington Square, where it stayed until the proposed Tesco project forced all businesses out of the development.
The shop currently shares a space at the bottom of the high street with The Bong Shop, which is also run by Thule and will remain open.
The Joke Shop will close on Saturday, February 29, and be redeveloped into a gallery space for local artists.
Thule says a slump in retail in the seaside town in the 90s and early 2000s was the first thing to start hurting the business.
"The market changed physically as a seaside resort when we stopped getting coaches of people coming down for Dreamland," she said.
"We don't get massive coaches like we used to, where 20 or 30 people all want to buy a silly hat.
"The good days like gay pride are fantastic, but we used to get a day once a week like that in the summer, but now we get it once a year."
With the closure of the business, Thule says she will be sad to no longer see the business as a staple of the town's high street.
She said: "People still come in and say 'I used to come in and buy stink bombs and and now I'm here with my grandchild and they're here buying stink bombs'.
"So I'm going to miss that, yeah."
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