BAV History of Retail in 100 Objects

While the shelf has evolved in terms of its material, size and configurations, and technological advancements, the fundamental purpose to maximize product assortments and sales hasn’t changed. Stack it, show it, sell it, is still the goal of visual merchandising and the overall store experience. Listen to learn more.

Since ancient times and throughout the history of man, wherever roads intersected or throngs of people gathered, buyers and sellers, or peddlers, quickly created a centralized market for the exchange of goods and services. Listen to learn more.

Cuneiform tablets highlight our shopping journey from the ancient world to modern times. The shopping bag and the shopping list have survived the journey of time and civilizations. Listen to learn more.

Scales are one of civilization's most important developments. For centuries, traders have bought and sold goods according to weight and today all trade depends on having a fair system of weights and measures controlled by law. Listen to learn more.

As an early form of crude currency, animal skins were vital to man’s existence and evolved to become a status symbol as well as a raw material for various goods. Listen to learn more.

The abacus, or beads on a board, provided an easier and more sophisticated retail transaction methodology and was actually the bridge from pebbles, twigs and lines in the sand to the first calculator. Listen to learn more.

The barcode was one of the most important inventions that revolutionized the retail industry. It completely automated the speed and accuracy of the checkout process.

The humble Allen Key facilitated a boom in the sale of flat packed goods for home assembly and today the majority of DIY furniture sold requires this tool which is included with the original package. The development of the Allen Key also resulted in the emergence of a new kind of DIY store, of which IKEA is the best recognized around the world. Listen to learn more.

The development of visual merchandising practices and their application changed the look of the sales floor and brought a sense of theatre to retail. Through visual merchandising, retailers made shopping fun and brought a sense of discovery to their stores. Listen to learn more.

The vending machine is no longer just a form of convenience, but a marketing tool and mobile store for retailers of all types who want to target consumers in high traffic locations not only for impulse purchases but enhanced brand awareness. Listen to learn more.

Its aseptic packaging technology offers consumers, brand owners and retailers greater convenience, wider product selection, easy opening, and optimal shelf life as well as more efficient distribution, warehouse storage, and shelf stock display. Almost 200 billion packages are sold annually worldwide. Listen to learn more.

Whether it’s management of the supply chain, customer service or online shopping, the telephone in all its guises has been one of the most fundamental enablers for the retail industry. Listen to learn more.

As supermarkets and retail outlets expanded and developed enormous footprints, the deployment of PA (or ‘Tannoy’) systems in stores became standard. Amplified sound enabled management to direct operations. Listen to learn more.

The speciality store, or “category killer,” represented a different approach to serving shoppers and created powerful growth opportunities for retailers and brands. By offering deep product assortments within narrow merchandise classifications, retailers created a viable store format that offered consumers unlimited choice, competitive prices and differentiation from traditional department and discount stores. Listen to learn more.

Southdale was designed with two things in mind, the consumer and the future. Listen to learn more.

The soda fountain was a cultural and social phenomenon when it first appeared in US drug stores. Over the years, it has evolved at retail to include coffee bars, whiskey bars, wine and beer tasting rooms as well as self-service digital beverage centres that can automatically dispense dozens of beverages. Listen to learn more.

The smartphone gave shoppers an unprecedented ability to access and share information via a mobile device with significant implications for retailers. Listen to learn more.

Signs have been a mainstay of retail and critical to effective communications, merchandising, marketing and promotions. Listen to learn more.

The shopping center represented the earliest form of retail development and established the philosophy that a mutually beneficial effect was created by assembling a group of retailers together to form a destination. Listen to learn more.

Trolleys increased sales for all stores that adopted them, as shoppers were better able to self-serve throughout the store and make more purchases. Like the advent of refrigeration, the trolley was partly responsible for the transition to less frequent supermarket shopping occasions as customers could do a weekly shop. Listen to learn more.

Polythene shopping bags increased the average transaction value by enabling customers to purchase and transport more products. Listen to learn more.

Standardized shipping containers established faster, more efficient loading, enabled a massive growth in international trading, and created more streamlined supply chain possibilities. Listen to learn more.

Shannon Airport’s Duty Free shop was groundbreaking in that it created a new retail channel and led to the development of a different kind of shopping environment, soon replicated at air and seaports across the globe. Listen to learn more.

The sewing machine saw the birth of clothing manufacturing as we know it today, creating a supply and demand for ready-made garments. Listen to learn more.

In the mid-19th century, the concept of one-stop shopping in the form of the Department Store, Galleria and Arcade arrived. These places were destinations in their own right, offering a shopping environment that respectable people were keen to experience. Listen to learn more.

The grand master of mail order, the Sears Catalogue, invented a new category of retailing which was copied and emulated across the world. The catalogue can be seen as an early precursor to today’s e-commerce retailing. Listen to learn more.

The Royal Exchange is considered by many to be the world’s first shopping mall. It established the principle of combining multiple shops under a single roof that offered a broad range of merchandise categories. Listen to learn more.

As so many bridges throughout the world have since become gateways to new opportunities for commerce, lifestyle and retail development, the Rialto Bridge epitomises the impact of a city’s infrastructure on its vibrant growth. Listen to learn more.

RFID use is already widespread and demand among retailers worldwide continues to rise as cost of tags has declined. The tags not only enable better and more secure inventory control for retailers across the supply chain, but are also being used for dynamic pricing, real-time inventory and in-store marketing. Listen to learn more.

Retail brands were a game-changing development for the industry. Shoppers’ willingness to purchase retail brands and shop at chains dedicated exclusively to particular brands created new avenues of growth and fuelled profitability. Listen to learn more.

Retail advertising, which created some of the largest, most successful and iconic brands in business, is quickly evolving with less emphasis on traditional print and TV commercials, and more focus on digital and social media ads as well as branded content. Listen to learn more.

Refrigeration radically changed the capabilities and potential of every stage of the supply chain. Listen to learn more.

Receipts and proof of purchase have been used since the earliest days of retail transaction, providing legal proof of the transfer of ownership of goods. Listen to learn more.

During the 1930s, 40s, and even into the 1950s, rationing changed the face of retailing in the UK. Listen to learn more.

QR codes, which have more storage capacity than UPC codes, have gained significant popularity as smartphone and tablet usage and penetration have become widespread. Listen to learn more.

The price tag represented a major advancement in price transparency. Shoppers were able to instantly understand the cost of an item and make a purchase decision without the aid of a retail employee. Listen to learn more.

The invention of the price gun marked a step forward in retail efficiency by enabling store personnel to quickly and accurately price merchandise. Listen to learn more.

The pocket balance was the first major development in weighing scales that didn’t rely on the use of counterweights. Their portability enabled goods to be weighed anywhere, not only in shops or other fixed locations. Listen to learn more.

Transporting cash and till receipts via the PTT had a big impact on the safety and efficiency of money handling within the retail environment. Listen to learn more.

Being airtight, watertight and able to withstand freezing temperatures, the introduction of plastic packaging greatly extended the shelf life – and therefore geographic footprint – of perishable goods. Listen to learn more.

Planograms help maximize revenues by displaying merchandise assortments in an attractive and customer-friendly style, enabling efficient shelf replenishment, and optimizing sales performance. Listen to learn more.

Paper currency, which was first developed by the Chinese during the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century, marked the beginning of simplifying the payment process and making it easier, less cumbersome, and far more dependable. Listen to learn more.

The pallet is the fundamental tool that enables the efficient and easy transport of merchandise through the retail distribution process from manufacturing plants worldwide, to warehouses, to store shelves. Listen to learn more.

Neon signs broke new ground in retail advertising and transformed the urban landscape of many cities around the world into an eclectic showcase of flashing lights. Listen to learn more.

Reflections of our own image had a magical significance in ancient cultures. Today, mirrors are taking on new dimensions as digital technology begins to extend their capabilities for retail use. Listen to learn more.

The supermarket revolutionized food shopping in the early 1900s based on an extensive selection of food and non-food products, self-service, competitive prices, brands, and convenience under one roof. Listen to learn more.

Mannequins continue to be central to the art of visual merchandising and they remain an important part of a retailer’s marketing message and sales efforts. Listen to learn more.

The loyalty card changed retailers’ approach to marketing and introduced a new competitive dynamic to the industry. Listen to learn more.

Through the ages, bookkeeping was tedious and time consuming, but a critical function of the retail business. Listen to learn more.

The Kvass barrel, alongside the beer barrel, was a way of distributing a high demand, perishable product quickly and efficiently, on every street corner, creating a myriad of ‘pop up’ retail distribution points. Listen to learn more.