RETAIL TRADING IN THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND

Abstract

It is often said that the modernization of distribution system would usually lag behind industrialization. However, in British economic history, there are two contradictory views of the problem : whether or not the Industrial Revolution in England was accompanied by a retail revolution. In examining this debate, we must consider the retailing of this period from the side of consumers who intervened into the distribution system.For example, the Rochdale Pioneers established the base from which the true modernization of distribution system started.