[Tagging] Shop vs amenity

[Philip Barnes]

On Fri, 2015-08-28 at 14:43 +0200, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> 
> sent from a phone
> 
> > Am 28.08.2015 um 02:37 schrieb John Willis <johnw at mac.com>:
> > 
> > We don't have "building=drop_forge" and building=paint_booth for
> > industrial, yet those are specialty building types -
> 
> 
> I agree those are particular building types (with particular
> requirements that lead to specific architectural solutions), but I
> don't agree that we don't want them tagged as such in OSM ;-)
> Building types are by wiki definition "any type you want", unless the
> value is the pointless "no", common data consumers will recognize all
> values as a building. No need to repeat the information from the
> landuse at the same information level on the building. I also
> acknowledge that current documentation for building types is rather
> poor.
> 
I don't think we can distinguish a supermarket from a department store
by the building, that will vary from region to region.

I think the fundamental difference between a supermarket, at least a
large hypermarkets/superstores and a department store is the method of
shopping.

Small supermarkets are primarily food stores, superstores such as large
Tesco, Walmart, Auchan sell much of what a department store would but
the method of shopping is fundamentally different.

Suppose my shopping list a pair of jeans, a DVD and a bottle of wine.
I walk into Tesco, get a trolley and go to the clothing section. I pick
up a pair of jeans, put the into the trolley and head for the media
section. I again pick up the DVD, put it in the trolley and walk to the
beer, wines and spirits section. I then go to a till and pay for all
the items and leave.

In a department store I would pay for each item individually, in the
department and hence have three transactions.

Most supermarkets are on a single floor, the trolley being the main
driver here, but any large supermarkets now have multiple floors. The
floors being linked by travelators where the trolley wheels lock into
the slots to prevent them rolling. I have seen these in Tesco, ASDA and
Auchan.

Department stores tend to be older, in city centres, hence the multiple
floors. But new ones, in out of town retail parks can equally be a
single floor.

Phil (trigpoint)