Village shop

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The village shop (formerly also a general store ) is a rural local supply facility . There are different forms under which village shops are run: as a consumer cooperative , by retailers , as a neighborhood shop or farm shop . Today they are increasingly run by special purpose communities such as economic associations .

The village shop (formerly also a general store) is a rural local supply facility. There are different forms under which village shops are run: As a consumer cooperative , by retailers, also neighborhood shops or farm shops. Today they are increasingly operated by citizens in the legal form of the cooperative, economic associations (focus on Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate) and the civil community (legal form of UG & Still; focus in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony).

Against the background of the increasing number of village shops with public participation, it is advisable to distinguish between the classic village shop and the community shop (local supplier with public participation; meanwhile also local shops such as in Kempten, Kelheim, Munich etc.).

history

In earlier times, his range of goods was oriented more broadly and less deeply. Only groceries were offered less often, textile goods, tools, household goods, haberdashery and paper goods, cigarettes and additional services (lottery or laundry acceptance) were also offered. Often it was “ written ”.

Rolling supermarket

The pricing policy of this retail form had to be based on these framework conditions . As soon as the general motorization of the village population had withdrawn most of the demand in the next central town with supermarkets and specialist retailers, only children, the elderly and poor people remained as customers. In the Federal Republic of Germany this led to the rapid withering of village shops in the 1980s and initially to an increase in mobile shopping centers (see traveling merchants ), then to their decline.

Current development

Entrance of a village shop in Upper Bavaria

Some of these shops have survived to this day. The village shops are also always obliged to adapt their sales concept to current developments. The following individual development stages make this clear:

  • small supermarket
  • Strengthening the regional range
  • Increase in added value through the expansion of the service area
  • Increasing the quality of experience in the village shops
  • 24/7 (24/7 availability of goods on 7 days of the week + digitization)

Current concepts for village shops are increasingly developing into multifunctional village centers. In particular, demographic and social change (an increase in the 65+ population and an increase in single households) are influencing this stronger development of the smaller multifunctional shops / local suppliers close to home.

Various state governments have promoted such concepts, for example the state of Schleswig-Holstein (market meeting model), Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria (currently: 5-star village shop).

In the last few months, some community and village shops have come together to form an association (Association of Community and Village Shops in Germany eV) in order to be able to represent their interests more towards politics (federal and state governments). The close cooperation with the respective regional associations (trade associations) strengthens their commitment to basic and local supplies in weakly structured regions (small villages, districts, etc.)

See also

literature

  • Lower Saxony City and Municipal Association of Hanover: The village shop. An opportunity for rural areas . 1999
  • State Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Forests Saxony: The village shop. Introduction to the problem of supply in rural areas . 1997
  • Ulrike Hoffmann: The local supply in rural areas . 1989
  • Robert Nieschlag: Internal Trade and Internal Trade Policy . 2nd Edition. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972
  • Günter Lühning: Village shop manual. Securing local supplies in rural areas . 2008, dorfladen-netzwerk.de
  • Kristin Pezzei: We can sell ourselves !: How country people bring their shop back to the village . Schweisfurth Foundation , Metropolis, Marburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-89518-978-4 (= agriculture in the 21st century ).

Web links

Wiktionary: Village shop  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations