When I visit other countries, I always notice there is one type of shop that seems to exist in larger numbers than necessary.
For example, in France they seem to have tons of pharmacies. In Italy it’s underwear boutiques. For the UK I would say it’s charity shops. What type of shops have you noticed a lot of?
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Touristic slops selling penis-shaped corkscrews, alabaster statuettes and “food kits” (honey, chicken mix, tzatziki mix, baklava servings)
The city where I live definitely has a lot of charity shops. What I’d say there are far more of than necessary are barbers, bookies & vape shops.
Casual dining, from all over. Doner, wok, fusion, sandwiches. Sometimes four or five in one street. All claim to have won an award at one time or another.
Barbershops/hairdressers for sure. They are the only shops guaranteed to be found in every dying village and there are multiple in places with hardly any other shops. In larger cities there is always multiple per city block at the city center and at least one in every neighborhood.
Bars. Everywhere. Spain is the country with the most bars per capita in the world, with one bar for every 175 inhabitants.
In fact, there are more bars in Spain than anything else. There are more bars than bakeries (1375 inhabitants per each), pharmacies (2160) or food stores (1810).
In my town in Spain hairdressers, nail bars and other beauty centres. Also a lot of bakery/coffee shops, and gyms and physiotherapists. Was recently in a much more rural town though and it had none of these, mostly just lots of butchers.
Convenience stores, especially Żabka. In big cities you have one every 500 meters, usually you can see at least two other when standing in front of one.
Stockholm has oddly many fancy designer lamp stores – just lamps, no furniture or designer decor. They’re not on every street corner ofc, but I remember it standing out to me when I moved here 6 years ago, it’s such a specific niche
For Germany I’d say it’s bakeries. We love our breads and rolls.
I’m a Brit living elsewhere in Europe, and I would certainly say pharmacies, hairdressers and charity shops
Malta – probably grocery shops (in this I’m including supermarkets, convenience shops and village corner shops)
There’s currently an over-abundance of hipsterburger burger joints in Sweden.
It was the hot trend a few years ago, and tons of both independent restaurants and new chain restaurants grew like mushrooms around cow dung.
Expensive burgers from fresh ingredients instead of prefab frozen patties, and with in-house special toppings (though pretty much same-same everywhere).
Slightly slower than the usual fast-food chains, but slightly faster than proper slow-food restaurants.
The trend is subduing, and the market was also quickly oversaturated.
(edit: And a few years prior, it was frozen yoghurt places with buffets of toppings. They’re pretty much gone now, almost all of them.)
Coffeeshops! 😆
Albania has the highest number of coffeeshops per capita in the world (or at least it did back in 2016, but the coffee culture is still going strong).
Pharmacies. Everywhere. 3 on a street, and then another two when you pass the corner. Green flashing crosses all around you.
In Norway it must be grocery stores.. you can arrive at medium size norwegian town… and they might have 3-4-5 different grocery stores. A lot more than needed. In extreme cases like this.. 11 grocery stores in a place with 12.000 people.. Though doesn’t help on the prices.. cost a lot more to run “tons of shops”, that’s also some of the debate. Given that those serving the grocery shops with the products is some kind of “oligarchy” you get the samme products in all those 11 shops. Doesn’t matter if you go into shop A, B , C, D etc..
Apart from bars as other mentioned, in my hometown there are a ridiculous amount of dental clinics. I don’t know how they can be profitable.
El Salvador had an insane amount of cellphone shops hahah
When I lived in Ukraine it was coffee shops/stalls/stands/windows and pharmacies that really stuck out (and notaries).
Also pharmacies. And maybe also:
Take-away coffee shops are everywhere in Greece
Also, Pharmacies
Butchers for sure. There are like 5 or 6 in my small city of 20,000 inhabitants, all on the same street.
In Burundi there’s like 3-4 pharmacies in every street.
In Norway I would say sport shops. In a 10.000 inhabitants town there were at least 5 of them
Definitely grocery stores, most commonly Maxima.
Every town has one or more.
Back in the day the main difference between a town and a village was whether it had a proper big church. Now it is Maxima.
Charity shops, we love second hand stuff because you can find some wild stuff
Vape shops and phone repair shops
Ironically, a lot of pubs are closing down due to high cost of rent and people drinking less in general
I dont know if it counts in this discussion, but amusement parks. Denmark has way more amusement and theme parks on a “per capita”basis than seems responsible.
Hairsalons, barbers and the likes. I live in a small town in a less populated region and in the town itself we have like 14 salons.
Edit. The village next to my town,even smaller, has 17!!!
Tea parlors. I think we have the most per capita in the world.
So-called “Chinese shops” (“kínai bolt”) – very low-end convenience stores selling a random collection of anything and everything, from sexy underwear and sweat pants to party accessories and hygienie products, random assortment of household products, also candy, packaged food, coffee, etc. Usually all very low quality (except for food/coffee, those are usually surprisingly fine), often counterfeit or knockoffs (again, except for the food/coffee), and usually run by Chinese or Vietnamese owners. They’re everywhere, likely because they used to be very very cheap compared to usual grocery/convenience stores (past tense not a mistake, our glorious, EU leader inflation has gotten to them, too).
Those with a heavier focus on food can be absolutely worth it, because weirdly enough they often carry brands, and sometimes foods, that you won’t find anywhere else. For example, for the longest time the only place I could find 100% pure peanut butter was in one of these, and I still usually buy peanut butter there simply because they carry the only brand that is affordable. Same with sugar free products, they have the largest variety of them I’ve ever seen, including local health focused shops.
Bookies, bloody bookies shops, vape shops, phone case shops, American sweet shops and the odd “Turkish” barbers. No wonder the high street has gone to the dogs
🇩🇰
Barbershops, with few cutomers. I think they are withwashing fronts.
In Romania’s major cities there’s pharmacies, casinos and banks everywhere.
There are pharmacies around every corner in Germany.
Vape & mobile phone accessory shops are everywhere in Ireland. Rumour has it many are money laundering, but I have no idea if it’s true.
Hairdressers, nails salons, betting shops and quick loans.
Casinos and betting locations, it’s like living in Las Vegas 24/7, even small towns have at least one casino open. There’s even a casino in the international terminal at Bucharest-Otopeni airport. They’ve become a huge problem because many people are addicted to them and the government does not want to regulate them in any way possible, at this point the government is complicit in destroying people’s lives and savings.
Catholic churches (they sell indulgence, marriage, blessing of all kinds)
In the UK it is charity shops. Mostly because the rentals have put businesses out.
Thai massage parlors. Some are legit and some are not. It’s said that in every tiny little town you’ll find a church, a football team, a pizza place – and a Thai massage place.
Casinos. Although the word “casino” is probably too fancy – instead of grand hall with blackjack tables and nicely dressed croupiers, think of it rather as a smelly hole where dead eyed drunks throw half of their monthly paycheck into slot machines.
But generally, gambling seems to he a huge thing here.
In Poland:
In the UK we have a ton of betting shops. Disgusting shite
Scotland, but specifically my city Edinburgh – literally hundreds of tartan tat shops selling mad overpriced tartan shawls, scarves jumpers in “your” “clan’s” tartan.
Supermarkets in Copenhagen, retailers have expanded massively in recent years. In my hood I have 4 within a 10 min walk, 7 within 15 min, it’s insane
Copenhagen here, and oddly, there’s a suspicious amount of stores selling rubber ducks opening up all over the city center recently 🦆 It’s ducking strange!
Are countries with a lot of pharmacies selling marijuana over the counter?
In my home town, there were 11 pubs on one Street. Not even a very long street. A lot less now, but we still have a crazy number of them.
Ireland BTW.
Thanks, I wish! But someday it will happen, like, 25 years from now!
Hairdressers, beauty salons and all kinds of fast food like kebab shops and recently bubble tea.
Coop pronto: perfect for an expensive soda or expensive beer
Pharmacies, corner shops and casinos. Maybe the latter don’t count as shops but they are FUCKING EVERYWHERE.
Ozon and Wildberries pick-up points. The two companies are the biggest internet marketplaces in Russia and both operate incredibly extensive franchise networks of pick-up points where you can inspect the goods you’ve ordered online, try them on, pay for them or return them. You can see their signs in literally every village.
https://imgur.com/a/XjQLW8O
Shops selling shoes or clothing. Sometimes whole streets are flooded with them.
Betting shops – that money isn’t going to launder itself!
In Amsterdam a tonne of tacky gift shops and off their nut tourists
UK – Turkish barbers. About 3/4 are front for laundering criminal profits.
24/7 alcohol and tobacco shops, casinos and pawn shops. The occasional bakery here or there.
amsterdam is full of nutella stores ( the ones where they sell ice cream and waffles or and “agentinian steak houses) and rubber duck stores
Delis. In every convenience store or filling station. Although not of the same quality, a good one is GLORIOUS.
In Denmark, second hand red cross stores 🙄 in a town of 6-7k people we had 5 😑
In Portugal, too many stores sell the same Muslim fridge tiles, cork bags, hats and wallets made of cork..
French here I would say bakeries, it’s cliché but very true and as you said so well, pharmacies too
In Germany it’s Döner Kebap, even small villages that don’t have a bakery or supermarket sometimes have a Kebap shop. In the city you come across one every few minutes when you walk somewhere. We eat a lot Döner here and there are queues on lunch and dinner time.