She Said She Had 600 Shops. I Wasn't So Sure.

A few years ago, I was exhibiting Petimo at a trade show when I got chatting to a buyer. After a friendly introduction and a quick overview of the cards, I asked what I thought was a perfectly ordinary question.

"Do you have a shop?"

The reaction caught me slightly off guard. She looked at me as though I'd asked something faintly insulting.

"Yes," she replied, looking me directly in the eye.

Pause.

"Six hundred actually." as if it was a mic drop moment.

It turned out she worked for a major supermarket chain. I don’t know how she expected me to react but I just kept on chatting about cards in general and she went on her way. What I was thinking was “Well why are you looking at my cards then? You’re never going to buy them are you?“ I saw her later on, sat with a colleague, looking at my brochure and discussing it.

Now, before anyone writes in, I know exactly what she meant. The company she worked for had around six hundred stores. She wasn't wrong. But the exchange stuck with me because I realised that when I asked if she had a shop, we were talking about two completely different things. The company she worked for had six hundred shops. She didn't have any.

She wasn't personally responsible for six hundred leases. She wasn't lying awake worrying about six hundred electricity bills. She didn’t have 600 landlords and 600 monthly rents to pay. She wasn't wondering whether six hundred staff rotas would work out. She wasn't deciding whether to spend the cash in the bank account on more stock or more marketing. She worked “in retail”. But did she have a shop? Of course not. And perhaps more importantly, she wasn't a shopkeeper either. That's not a criticism. It's simply a different job.

The more years I spend in shopkeeping, the more I think people use the word "retail" as though it describes one thing, when in reality it describes dozens of completely different activities.

A supermarket buyer is in retail. An Etsy seller is in retail. A coffee shop owner is in retail. A market trader is in retail. An independent gift shop owner is in retail. But are they all doing the same job? I don't think so.

When I think about shopkeeping, I think about someone who curates a physical space. Someone who chooses products, displays products, prices products and then watches real customers react to those decisions. Someone who constantly interprets feedback, not through surveys and reports, but through conversations, sales figures and what actually leaves the shelves. A shopkeeper lives in a constant feedback loop. Customers vote every day. Not with words, but with their wallets. The shopkeeper's job is to pay attention.

That's why I often find that advice aimed at "small businesses" doesn't quite fit. Many small businesses don't hold stock. Many don't have premises. Many don't have opening hours. Many don't have customers wandering in just to browse. Many don't have the challenge of creating an environment that encourages people to stay, explore and buy.

Likewise, much of the advice aimed at large retailers misses the mark too. The reality of running an independent shop has very little in common with managing one team inside of one department inside a of giant organisation. In a large company, responsibility is divided between hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people.

A team buys.

A team markets.

A team recruits.

A team manages property.

A team analyses data.

A team handles operations.

A team serves customers.

In a small independent shop, that's usually all the same person.

You are the buyer, merchandiser, marketer, recruiter, cleaner, accountant, display manager, customer service department and managing director. Usually before lunch. Perhaps that's why I get slightly frustrated when people talk about retail as though we're all facing the same challenges. We're not.

A supermarket chain and an independent shop may both sell products, but they operate in entirely different worlds. One is a giant cruise ship. The other is a small vessel navigating constantly changing conditions. Neither is inherently better than the other. But they require very different skills. And perhaps that's why independent shopkeepers often feel unseen. We're frequently grouped together with businesses that look vaguely similar from the outside but function completely differently underneath. So I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

What makes someone a shopkeeper?

Is it ownership?

Is it responsibility?

Is it risk?

Is it having skin in the game?

Or is it something else entirely?

Because the more I think about it, the more I suspect that shopkeeping is a distinct craft in its own right.

And one that doesn't get talked about nearly enough.