To be fair, other countries have shite high street shops too
In Denmark, for example, attempting to purchase a laptop resulted in finding out it was the last on the shelf, only the display model was available.
Great, you think, a discount and the laptop you wanted.
Not so, the sales person would only give a 5% discount... if you took out an enormously expensive insurance policy. Otherwise it was full price. For a display model that had been run 24/7.
Later, I simply found it online for less than the price in the shop...
So, you can't even find a bargain where you think shops would have an advantage - display models. So what's even the point of wasting your time and energy visiting them? Beats me.
(Sadly in Denmark there aren't as many online shops with enormous choice. I wish Amazon was there, would save money shipping from the UK!)
All that said, at least the town centres generally have free parking, and you use a timer to show when you pulled up, there's a limit on that. In the UK, having to make your way through streets of traffic to get to some miserable car park in the rain, pay for the privilege, then trudge around the shops finding only the things you: a) don't want, b) want at a reasonable price, which they didn't provide, you give up, go home, and buy the thing online in comfort.
I still go grocery shopping by driving to the shops, because frankly it's fun to make impulse food and booze purchases, and the larger shops usually have free parking anyway.