The Credit System

Abstract

‘Revolution’ is not too strong a word to describe the transformation that took place in many areas of retailing in the half-century before 1914. The relatively small specialist shop and the even smaller local general shop remained typical, but the emergence of multiple shops, specialist retailers and of the all-embracing department stores, totally transformed the attitudes and practices of shopkeepers at all levels and opened up a completely new shopping experience for customers. The retailing trade was adjusting to a new and increased demand, but shopkeepers were also coming to realise that they had a function in not only satisfying demand, but also in stimulating it and, if necessary, altering taste and fashion. They realised that even in the smallest budgets there was an order of priorities which, under sales pressure, could be altered.

As soon as houses in the street were occupied there swept down upon us a flock of human vultures eager to obtain as much money as they could possibly screw out of the people. These tallymen, who were generally either Jews or Scotsmen, were insurance agents, sewing-machine agents, furniture-on-the-hire-system agents, and so forth. All had something to sell on the easiest possible terms; in fact, one might suppose, taking them on their own valuation, that they were merely stray philanthropists, wandering about the world endeavouring to make life easier for those less fortunate than themselves.

O. C. Malvery, The Soul Market, 6th edn (n.d). p. 730