Changes within living memory: Shops
There are lots of different types of shop.
This is a shop…
And these are all shops!
But how are shops now different from the past?
Here’s our timeline! Let’s look at shops from the 1950s to the 2020s to find out more…
In the 1950s, shops were often small and only sold a few items. So, it was normal for people to go to several shops in one day to buy what they needed.
A lot of these small shops, like the bakery, the greengrocers and the butchers, were owned and run by local families.
Most towns also had a weekly market, selling all kinds of different things – like clothes, tools, or homegrown vegetables.
In the 1950s, many shopkeepers used scales to weigh different items and work out the cost.
Back then, shops didn’t use barcodes, scanners, or electric tills. So, working out the cost of someone’s shopping took longer than it does now.
By the 1970s, supermarkets became more popular, as they sold lots of different things in one place.
And by the 1970s, most families owned a car, meaning they could drive to a supermarket and buy many different things, rather than walking to smaller shops each day.
Now, we have even more shops to choose from and technology has massively changed the way people shop.
Self-checkouts, barcodes and scanners mean that people can usually serve themselves quickly.
And online shopping, using the internet, means people can buy things without visiting an actual shop!
Shops have changed a lot over time…
They have! Can you remember what the 1970s shops were like?
Let’s compare these photographs. Is the 1970s shop A, B or C?
The shop in this photo looks small. It has scales for the shopkeeper to weigh things.
The shop in this photo has many more items on the shelves, but it doesn’t look like a big supermarket.
The shop in this photo has lot of aisles, as well as shopping trolleys and modern tills.
I think the photo from the 1970s decade is…
B!
That’s right!
This is Hitsy…
He has lots of stories to share about shops.
So, what would you like to know?
When you were a child, where did you shop?
I was born in the 1960s and I used to go to the market stalls with my mother, but most people had to go to bakeries for bread, butchers for meat, groceries for fruit and veg and we had no big supermarkets like we do now.
How can we tell if a shop is old or new?
Well, a new shop will be big as you walk in, bright lights on the inside, plenty of different products that you can buy. They usually have more than one till as well, and nowadays there are lots of big supermarkets.
How can we find out more about shops from the past?
You can find out more about shops from the past by asking your grandparents, older people that you know, friends and family who have worked in stores. You could ask them about what they used to buy and what the shop actually looked like.
How were shops back then different to shops now?
Well shops didn’t sell as much as we do now, back then they didn’t have electronic tills, they didn’t have barcodes, the shopkeeper had to add everything up individually, and we didn’t have modern ways of paying like contactless and we had to pay with cash all the time.
Shops have changed a lot since the 1950s. Shops now sell many more items and people shop in different ways.
Now it’s your turn… Can you describe the shops you’ve been to… and find out how they’ve changed?