Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Shops, Markets and the Urban Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Amsterdam
- 2 Changing Distribution Systems: Differentiation and Specialization in Early Modern Amsterdam
- 3 Shop Location Patterns in the age of the Great Urban Expansions
- 4 The Retail Landscape and the Consumer in the Seventeenth Century
- 5 The Location of Shops in Amsterdam in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
- 6 Stagnation and Modernization in Amsterdam’s Retail Sector, 1700–1850
- Conclusion: Continuity and Change in Amsterdam’s Retail Landscape
- Appendix: Sources for the Location of Shops in Amsterdam and Selection of Sectors
- List of Consulted Sources and Literature
- List of Tables
- Image Credits
- Topographical Index
2 - Changing Distribution Systems: Differentiation and Specialization in Early Modern Amsterdam
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Shops, Markets and the Urban Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Amsterdam
- 2 Changing Distribution Systems: Differentiation and Specialization in Early Modern Amsterdam
- 3 Shop Location Patterns in the age of the Great Urban Expansions
- 4 The Retail Landscape and the Consumer in the Seventeenth Century
- 5 The Location of Shops in Amsterdam in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
- 6 Stagnation and Modernization in Amsterdam’s Retail Sector, 1700–1850
- Conclusion: Continuity and Change in Amsterdam’s Retail Landscape
- Appendix: Sources for the Location of Shops in Amsterdam and Selection of Sectors
- List of Consulted Sources and Literature
- List of Tables
- Image Credits
- Topographical Index
Summary
Abstract:
This chapter charts the evolution of the extensive distribution system connecting producers and consumers. From the middle of the sixteenth until the second half of the seventeenth century, the size of the Amsterdam market increased sharply, and so did the wealth of the urban elites. These changes gave rise to an expanding trade sector and to differentiation and job specialization within the distribution system. The modernity of the distribution system that emerged in Amsterdam was expressed in the presence of specialized wholesalers and retailers, who together guaranteed a wide and varied range of goods in the city. At the same time, the division between wholesale and retail was not as stark as it would become much later.
Keywords: distribution system, differentiation, specialization
Retail trade is not a self-standing phenomenon but forms part of an extensive distribution system connecting producers and consumers. Shopkeepers play a role in this distribution system, but they are not alone in doing so. In this chapter, we take a closer look at the different links in what is sometimes the long chain along which goods are driven, from producers all the way to the households where they are used and ultimately consumed. This also gives us an opportunity to distinguish more precisely than we have until now between retailers and other suppliers of consumer goods. But let us begin at the beginning and consider the question of what exactly is meant by distributive trade and when the need arises in society for the services of middlemen.
Distribution systems in the US and England
In economies where there is still little division of labour, the roles of producer and consumer tend to overlap. Households mainly produce for their own needs, and only a small part of that which is produced is exchanged or handed over to secular or religious authorities in tax or as a fee for services rendered. Consumers’ needs are limited and not particularly varied— which is also necessary, because there are few means for purchasing goods that are not produced in the household or the immediate vicinity.
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- Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020