GENERAL STORE

(Redirected from Village shop)

In Australia, Canada and the United States, a 'general store' is a retailer located in a small town or in a rural area with a broad selection of merchandise crammed into a relatively small space where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general goods, both in stock and special order from warehouses. In the United Kingdom, similar retailers tend to be referred to as a "village shop" in rural areas or a "corner shop" in urban areas or suburbs.
General stores often sell staple food items such as milk and bread, and various household goods such as hardware and electrical supplies. The concept of the general store is very old, and although some still exist, there are far fewer than there once were, due to urbanization, urban sprawl, and the relatively recent phenomenon of big-box stores.

Contents

In the United States

In popular culture

In the United Kingdom

In popular culture

See also

In the United States

During the first half of the 20th century, general stores were displaced in many areas of the United States by many different types of specialized retailers. But from the 1960s through the 1990s, many small specialized retailers were in turn crushed by the so-called "category killers", which are "big-box" wholesale-type retailers large enough to carry the majority of best-selling goods in a specific category like sporting goods or office supplies.

However, the convenience inherent in the general store has been revived in the form of the modern convenience store and the hypermarket, which can be seen as taking the general store or convenience store concept to its largest possible implementation.

In popular culture

TV shows with a historic or nostalgic flavour have depicted general stores in small communities as much as gathering places for the exchange of news and gossip as for their stated purpose of the retail trade. Some examples of this slice of American history include Godsey's store in ''The Waltons'' and the Olsens' store in ''Little House on the Prairie''. A modern reflection of the convenience store's place and importance within American communities is the Kwik-E-Mart, run by Apu, in the animated series ''The Simpsons''. See Convenience stores in popular culture.

In the United Kingdom

Village shops have become increasingly rare in the densely populated parts of England, although they remain common in remote rural areas of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Their rarity in England is due to several factors, such as the rise in car ownership, competition from large chain supermarkets, the rising cost of village properties, and the increasing trend of the wealthy to own holiday homes in picturesque villages, consequently houses which used to be occupied full-time are often vacant for long periods. Some essential shop services are provided on a part-time basis, in the church or village hall. Village shops are often combined with a post office. Some villages now no longer have either, but the village pub has largely survived and these often function as small shops or post offices as well. Many village pubs have become notable dining experiences, attracting trade from their villagers, tourists and nerby town dwellers, another factor which has increased their survival in comparison to shops. Community shops have become popular in some villages, often jointly owned and run by many villagers as a co-operative. Village Retail Services Association (ViRSA) promotes the role and function of the village shop in the UK. Many modern village shops choose to stock items which draw in customers from neighbouring towns who are seeking locally sourced, organic and specialist produce. Of the village shops that do remain, many have developed dual functions to increase the likelihood of their survival. Such secondary functions include: private businesses such as tearooms, cafes, and bed and breakfast accommodation; state services such as libraries and General Practitioner (GP) or dental surgeries; and charity partners such as Women's Institute (WI) coffee mornings held on the day most elderly villagers might collect their weekly pensions.
In towns and cities the 'cornershop' has largely survived by cornering the market in convenience and late night operation. The 1970s saw the death of the traditional grocery shop, as it faced competition on two fronts: on the one hand from immigrant-owned corner shops trading longer hours (typically British Asian families), and on the other from the rise of the supermarket, which amalgamated many specialist retailers such as butchers, bakers, and grocers. The cornershop is now much more the local convenience shop than the family grocer of days gone by. Cornershops are usually so called because they are located on the corner plot or street end of a row of terraced housing, often Victorian or Edwardian factory workers' houses. The doorway into the shop was usually on the corner of the plot to maximise shop floor space within, but many have now altered the orignal shop front layout in favour of a mini-supermarket style.

In popular culture

Many British TV and radio series, especially soap operas, feature corner shops or village shops as cornerstones of the community. A prominent example is the only shop in Ambridge, the fictional village in the BBC Radio 4 series, ''The Archers'', (1950-present day). The previous incarnation of such shops was captured in the BBC TV comedy series ''Open All Hours'' (1976-1985), set in the real suburb of Balby in Northern England. The ITV1 soap opera ''Coronation Street'' (1960-present day) features a cornershop; it was owned by Alf Roberts the grocer and after his death in the 1990s was bought by Dev Alahan, reflecting this common change in British culture. The band Cornershop in part base their image on the perception that many convenience stores are now owned by British Asian people. In terms of British popular culture these media representations give some idea of the importance attached to local shops in the national psyche and as a mainstay of community life.

See also

★ Bodeguita

★ Convenience store

★ Depanneur in Quebec