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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
And finally . . .
how we got here
I want to finish the store section of the book with a look at the history
of retail. It doesn’t properly fit here but I didn’t want to relegate it to an
appendix either. This stuff is important and it will help you to be a better
retailer. The lessons are all there for us.
Righty ho – I’m going to take us through the early years, up to somewhere
around the 1950s. There are a few reasons for doing that – the first is to
prove a really important point: retailing is not about inventing new stuff.
Eh? ‘But you’ve gone on and on about ideas being the lifeblood of retailing
and that . . .’
That’s true, I have – here’s the thing: ideas are of course vital, ideas are
about change, improvement ...