The trouble-plagued Tamworth Blowes Menswear, which was put into voluntary administration last July before being briefly resurrected, will have its final trading day next week after a long history in the city.

Owner Brendon Blowes was typically forthright on his reason for pulling the pin on the local store – online shopping.

It’s no secret the burgeoning online shopping market poses a grave threat to our retailers.

Ever since the emergence of online sites like eBay, many local retailers have watched their market share being eaten away by a flurry of mouse clicks.

The end game to this trend is both frightening and real.

Less local sales means less stores, less stores means less jobs, and less jobs means less residents in Tamworth and less essential services for the rest of us.

Consider this: of every dollar spent in Tamworth, about 70 cents of it remains in the city and goes on to support the local economy.

Every dollar spent out of town is a dollar that never returns.

Of course, online shopping is now part of the retail landscape and it would be both naive and foolhardy to suggest people should refrain from it completely.

In a free market, shoppers have the right to seek out the best price available – whether it be in Peel St or Peru – and if local business owners can’t at least come close to competing, they don’t deserve to be in business.

Despite being at a competitive disadvantage, many of our retailers are furiously trying to compete and remain frustrated by locals who continue to buy online even when there’s a negligible price difference.

The situation is now critical: only a seismic shift in our shopping culture will save the retail landscape from its unedifying, slow demise.

Until we all shop with a conscience and consider the impact of our spend, that “death by a thousand clicks” will continue.

But in the age of rampant materialism, asking shoppers to make decisions on anything but price could be the toughest sell of all.