The first supermarket

In the early days of retailing, products generally were fetched by an assistant from shelves behind the merchant’s counter while customers waited in front of the counter and indicated the items they wanted. Most foods and merchandise did not come in individually wrapped consumer-sized packages, so an assistant had to measure out and wrap the precise amount desired by the consumer. This offered opportunities for social interaction: many regarded this style of shopping as “a social occasion” and would often “pause for conversations with the staff or other customers”.^[4] These practices were by nature slow and had high labor intensity and therefore also quite expensive. The number of customers who could be attended to at one time was limited by the number of staff employed in the store. Shopping for groceries also often involved trips to multiple specialty shops, such as a greengrocer, butcher, bakery, fishmonger and dry goods store; in addition to a general store. Milk and other items of short shelf life were delivered by a milkman.