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The word retail comes from the Old French verb retaillier, meaning "to shape by cutting" (c. 1365).It was first recorded as a noun in 1433 with the meaning of "a sale in small quantities" from the Middle French verb retailler meaning "a piece cut off, shred, scrap, paring". [1]
The retail outlets specialised in luxury goods such as fine jewellery, furs, paintings, and furniture designed to appeal to the wealthy elite. Retailers operating out of the Palais complex were among the first in Europe to abandon the system of bartering and adopt fixed prices thereby sparing their clientele the hassle of bartering.
The economic history of the United States spans the colonial era through the 21st century. The initial settlements depended on agriculture and hunting/trapping, later adding international trade, manufacturing, and finally, services, to the point where agriculture represented less than 2% of GDP .
Retail workers are people who are employed by any form of retail store. Typically one of the first jobs people work in, many retail workers are as young as 14. [ 1 ] The jobs of a typical retail worker include processing customers payments, and helping customers around the store, and little training is required.
As economic growth, fueled by the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th-century, steadily expanded, the affluent bourgeois middle-class grew in size and wealth. This urbanized social group was the catalyst for the emergence of the retail revolution of the period. The term, "department store" originated in the United States.
While the above definitions were becoming established, other people began using the term consumerism to mean "high levels of consumption". [3] This definition has gained popularity since the 1970s and began to be used in these ways: Consumerism is the selfish and frivolous collecting of products, or economic materialism.
There are generally five major types of cooperative organizations: Consumers' cooperatives, in which the consumers of a co-operative's goods and services are defined as its members (including retail food co-operatives and grocery stores, credit unions, mutual insurance companies, etc.) (Example: REI, federal credit unions, etc.)
Whereas Portuguese traders concentrated on the accumulation of capital, in Kongo spiritual meaning was attached to many objects of trade. According to economic historian Toby Green, in Kongo "giving more than receiving was a symbol of spiritual and political power and privilege." [68]