A Brief History of Retail

Retail serves end consumers (individuals and groups) with goods and services. Its three core elements are people, goods, and place (the retail scene). Retail has never undergone a single revolutionary break; it has evolved by iterating with technology. Because retail exists, human needs can be met ever more fully; in turn, retail has propelled technological progress. Roughly five stages stand out:

1. Barter. When surplus arises, people gain the motive to exchange. Barter is retail in embryo, but exchangeable items and radius are limited. Shared recognition of value gives rise to price.

2. Emergence of money as a general equivalent. As skills improved and households specialized, short‑lived harvests (e.g., vegetables) couldn’t always find barter matches in time and space, so money arose. Money made exchange convenient beyond one‑to‑one trades: I can trade labor or goods for money, then buy anything else. This freed trade from perishability, spurred division of labor, boosted productivity and variety, and encouraged craftsmen to improve tools. Markets and then shops appeared — the true rise of retail.

3. First and Second Industrial Revolutions. Steam moved handcraft to standardized factories; products standardized, competition intensified, and brands emerged. Steam on rail and ships enabled modern trade and dumping. Electricity, internal combustion, and new materials enriched supply, ushering in a boom for retail.

4. E‑commerce era. E‑commerce removed regional limits and information asymmetry, letting consumers buy at the best price and, for the first time, publicly review merchants and products.

5. New Retail. In 2016 at Alibaba’s Yunqi Conference, Jack Ma proposed “New Retail”: fusing online and offline with modern logistics, big data, and cloud computing. He predicted that in 10–20 years there would be no “e‑commerce,” only New Retail — perhaps 60–80% of retail. In 2018 he clarified that the term then referred primarily to consumer‑goods retail.

New Retail centers on place: with mobile internet, IoT, AI, and modern logistics, connect online/offline, capture behavioral data to sense consumers, and, via full‑chain tracking and precise profiles, offer personalized product customization.

Thirty years from now, we’ll likely see today’s formats as relics.

Published at: Sep 18, 2025 · Modified at: Oct 26, 2025