The Boot and Shoe Trades in London and Paris in the Long Eighteenth Century

Corrections to the Account books as the one reported by John Stunt were fairly
common. Letters were arriving late, or could be lost, especially if customers
were not living in London. In this case the shopkeeper had to be very careful in
getting paid.
4.5 Consumption and retailing
The polarisation of shops into different social levels has not to be
exaggerated. The bespoke shops were touched by the claim that they sold
country stuff. The refinement we can see from the end of the eighteenth century
is a reaction designed to provide a convincing setting where the real and
apparent quality of products was confirmed by the quality of the display with
interiors decorated and furnished for high-class customers. 81 By the end of the
eighteenth century the proportion of high quality shops was rapidly declining.
The majority of shoe shops were targeting a wide variety of individuals. 82 We
are unable to address this issue with particular precision due to a lack of records
for these firms.
What we are unable to know is whether there was any policy based on price,
marketing high cost products for the high class customers and even loss making
products for the 'stock out of fashion' destined to the working class. On the
other hand the large number of advertisements and trade cards for these shops
seems to suggest the presence of different types and qualities of shoes sold in the
same shop. There was the bespoke, next to the ready-to-wear, but also different
prices, related to levels of quality. Ready made in fact did not coincide with
lower quality and lower prices. We have to interpret the expression 'fast selling'
in a positive way. One of the advantages of ready-made products was a vast
choice for the customer among the finished shoes he could try before buying.
There was no waiting for the order to be executed and the client could compare
with other shoes on a wide range of prices. This provides a notion of mass
' C. Walsh, 'Shop design and the display of goods in eighteenth-century London', Journal of
Design History, Vifi - 3 (1995), p. 169.
82 M.J. Winstanley, The shopkeeper's world, 1830-1914, cit., p. 10.
200