Shop (or Store)

HISTORY

In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora, a central open space where, on market days, goods were displayed on mats or temporary stalls.

By the 5th century BC Greek stallholders were clustered together according to the type of goods carried - clothing-sellers were in one place, fish was in another and sellers of more expensive goods such as perfumes, bottles and jars were located in a separate building.

The Bazaar of Athens by Edward Dodwell, 1821

Wealthy women of ancient Rome frequented shops that sold beauty products such as hair coloring and wrinkle creams. Popular, too, was a "special" water designed to grow or lengthen eyebrows and eyelashes.

The Roman forum was a public square in a Roman municipium, reserved primarily for the vending of goods. It consisted of a marketplace, along with the buildings used for shops and the stoas used for open stalls. It contained arguably the earliest examples of a permanent retail shop-front.

A two storey indoor 'shopping centre' was designed by the emperor Trajan's architect, Apollodorus of Damascus in Rome the early 2nd century AD. Cut into the side of Rome's Quirinal Hill,  Trajan's Forum was a vast expense housing housed at least 150 shops on four levels.

In the Arabic world, the increasing number of medicinal products arising from the abundance of plants from which drugs could  be extracted and more sophisticated methods of administering resulted in the emergence of specialist pharmacists. The first pharmacy opened in 770 in Baghdad.

The Grand Bazaar located in Isfahan, Iran, is a vaulted two-kilometre street linking the old city with the new. Originally constructed during the 11th century, it is  the longest roofed market in the world.

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, which was established in 1455, is thought to be the oldest continuously operating covered market.

Bazaar: Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, Turkey By Dmgultekin

In the 16th and 17th centuries marketplaces dating back to the Middle Ages, expanded as shopping centers, such as the New Exchange, opened in 1609 by Robert Cecil in the Strand, London. It was in this period that shops started to become important as places for Londoners to meet and socialize in the 17th century and became popular destinations alongside the theatre.

The first display windows in shops were installed in the late 18th century in London, where levels of conspicuous consumption were growing rapidly. Retailer Francis Place was one of the first to experiment with this new retailing method at his tailoring establishment in Charing Cross, where he fitted the shop-front with large plate glass windows.

The appropriately named Oldest Sweet Shop (originally called “The Old Sweet Shop”) is the oldest candy store in the world. The shop was founded in 1827 in the town of Pateley Bridge in England.

Until the 19th Century, shop development had remained static since ancient times, but with a growth of manufactured goods and it concentration of population in big towns came the development of the shopping center and the department store.

The shopping center arrived in the west on March 20, 1819 with the opening of George Cavendish's Burlington Arcade in London. It was built "for the sale of jewellery and fancy articles of fashionable demand, for the gratification of the public". The Burlington Arcade consisted of a single straight top-lit walkway lined with seventy-two small two storey units.

North entrance to the Burlington Arcade, with beadle in attendance. Wikipedia

The shopping center arrived in America in 1828 with the opening of The Arcade in Providence, Rhode Island.

The department stores took the form of many shops scattered in different towns and counties, able to buy wholesale in such quantities that prices could be lower than those of smaller competitors. The first reliably dated department store to be established, was Harding, Howell & Co, which opened in 1796 on Pall Mall, London.  Most of the major British cities had flourishing department stores by the mid-or late nineteenth century.

Spillers Records was founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller at its original location in Queens Arcade, Cardiff, Wales, where the shop specialized in the sale of phonographs, wax phonograph cylinders and shellac phonograph discs. It is the oldest record shop in the world.

Spillers Records at Morgan Arcade

Self-service, originated many years earlier in the USA by Clarence Saunders, developed rapidly after World War II as a result of staff shortages.

Supermarkets for groceries and hypermarkets outside towns with a very wide range of goods proliferated in the 1950s across Canada and the United States with the growth of automobile ownership and suburban development.

The mall, an air conditioned fully enclosed complex of shops representing merchandisers with interconnecting walkways, developed in the USA in the 1970s. The malls contained up to 250 shops in carpeted arcades, often on several levels, with music, free parking, cinemas, restaurants and childcare facilities. The idea was adopted in UK where the term shopping centre is generally used.

FUN SHOP FACTS

The Shinsegae Centumcity Department Store, located in Busan, South Korea, is the world's largest store. With 3.163 million square feet in one retail location, the Shinsegae flagship store surpasses the Herald Square Macy's Department Store in New York City for the title of "world's largest" by more than a million square feet. The name Shinsegae literally means "New World" in Korean.

Busan branch, world's largest department store. By Michiel1972

The blast of air you often feel when walking into a store is to prevent insects from flying in.

Baggers that work at grocery stores on American military installations only get paid in tips. They do not get an hourly rate.