It was not uncommon for each town to have a mom and pop store offering general merchandise that could be purchased for daily life. People during this time were also expanding settlement across the country and creating new towns. Many of these stores were drug stores or general stores selling everything from groceries and fabrics to toys and tools. In the 18th and 19th centuries, and particularly by the 1880s, these stores were plentiful throughout the United States. Mom and Pops: 1700s–1800s.Ī “mom and pop” store is a colloquial phrase for a small, family-owned, independent business. However, now let’s look at some (relatively) more recent retail history, how it impacts what we buy and sell, and how we behave today. We’ve already looked at some of the earliest history of retail - covering hundreds of years of bartering and peddling in a single bound. The History and Evolution of Retail Stores Let’s consider how various points on the retail timeline have affected what retail has become, how people shop, and what customers expect today. The definition of retail is expansive enough that it includes the traveling merchants of antiquity all the way to sprawling shopping malls, big-box stores and ecommerce platforms. Retail includes selling through different channels, so items purchased in store and those purchased online both apply. We’ll focus primarily on the post-Industrial Revolution era when retail really took off, all the way up to the Digital Revolution and the game changer that is ecommerce. In this deep dive, we’re investigating the evolution of retail and retail shopping in America. People would come there not only to shop but to socialize and participate in government.įlash forward a couple thousand years and we have our modern mammoths: retail giants like Walmart, Costco, and Target. These ruins are of an ancient Greek agora. By 800 BC in ancient Greece, people had developed markets with merchants selling their wares in the Agora in the city center. The first retail stores take up the mantle a bit further down the line. The first proper currency extends as far back as 3000 BC in Mesopotamia. People exchanged cows and sheep in trade as far back as 9000 BC. To trace the complete history of commerce back to its inception, we must travel to a time when wooly mammoths still walked the Earth. For nearly as long as people have existed, they have been sharing, bartering, selling, and consuming resources.
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