An Examination into the Retail Skills of Itinerant Retailers before 1900

This paper examines the retail skills of people who operated prior to 1900 without a fixed retail premises. The majority of research into retailing has focused on the retail outlet, and the traders who operate outside of it are under researched. It has been generally assumed that these traders, who operated on the margins of society have little skill, given their general low levels of education. Investigation of contemporary evidence however has shown that they employed a range of highly developed skills and had a good knowledge of the psychology of their consumer. The range of skills, advertising, selling, and buying are explored and evaluated. The paper ends by examining whether these techniques lead to success. In some cases it can be shown that itinerants who employed good retail skill could be highly successful. Introduction This paper examines the retail skills of itinerant sellers trading in England before 1900. Itinerant sellers were seen as the ‘poor relations’ compared with the more socially acceptable shopkeepers. Alexander (1970) puts forward the proposition that hawking was unskilled and required the input of time and labour for very little returns. Some of these traders were verging on destitution (Benson 1983),but this does not mean that they were devoid of retail skills. It is their poverty that makes the development of retail skills essential in order to survive. Mayhew (Neuburg 1985) who interviewed costermongers revealed that they thought they needed considerable retail skills to achieve high earnings. Wilson-Brooks’ (1986) research into Romanies also emphasised the need for good retail skills especially when selling to a hostile ‘gorgio’ customer. Little research has been carried out into the area of itinerant retailers, and particularly the skills that they possessed.