Where do you go when you want to buy name brand spatulas at a fraction of retail cost? Spatula City!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XbCWmY0eqY

Just thought of two more in Munich:

- Der Lautenladen sells only lutes, Anatolian lutes to be precise.

- Almost next to it is the "Spy Shop". I don't know if real spooks buy there but you can take the name quite literally.

I remember my first visit to Berlin AFTER 1989 (my first time was in the summer of 1989 and one of the things my dad wanted to do was go through checkpoint charlie and spend some time putzing about in East Berlin/Germany and I vaugeley remember noticing the difference in the crossing lights as a difference but that was probably about it...) and in sometime around '92 the little guy was EVERYWHERE. (for context to non-Germans or people who've never spent any time in Berlin/former east German cities the Ampelmann that the parent poster is referring to is the character of the crosswalk "green man walking/Red man stop" lights that was in use in the former East Germany before reunification. it was much more of a personable silhouette than the more diagramatic stick men of the west. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampelm%C3%A4nnchen

Schrauben Preisinger is an amazing store.

It's properly old-fashioned in appearance. A small, dark customer area, bounded by a counter staffed by grumpy men of oddly indeterminate age. Backed by rows and rows of ancient-looking wooden shelving, containing literal tons of different bolts (or any kind of threaded fastener).

I once went there because I needed a particular bolt for a 1972 Land Rover engine. Certainly not metric, but I had no idea what kind of thread and precise size it was. The clerk glanced at it, turned briskly, walked to a particular shelf, and picked up the bolt I would need. No looking, no measuring, no scratching of heads, no hesitation. He just eyeballed the bolt size and thread right there. He was correct, too.

I'd love an excuse to go there again, but I sold the Land Rover :-D

Edit: just remembered:

- a shop that sells combs. Yes. Combs.

- a shop that makes bespoke suspenders

- a shop that specialises in sausages from a particular region in Germany (which is far enough from Munich to feel entirely random)

Even the 75000 inhabitant city I live in has a balloon shop, but also one for brushes. Also in the neighboring city there used to be a shop just for rubber.

My ignorant understanding from consuming American pop culture is that Germans have a particular affinity for art in the medium of gummy :) https://youtu.be/T-2VGJPOJVA

Please give more information on the elk shop. I need it... for research (and cant find it on google)

My wife saw this one on the internet and really wanted to visit - unfortunately we are in Australia.

Bones for Dogs, a butcher just for raw meat to feed your dog.

http://www.bonesfordogs.de/

>elk shop for everything elk related - not that we have any elks in Germany but elks are cute

This sentiment right here is why more people are killed by Elk every year in Canada than bears.

> la porcelaine blanche

Not only is their slogan descriptive, the name alone suggests as much as well.

I’ve been to the Ampelmann shop and have a shirt! Yay me

there is a few more: Glass Shop: only sells things made out of glass. I love it. https://www.bottles.de/index.html There are a few shops that sells only keys and safes. There are 2 stores that sells only clothes to ballet

Wow this web site is like we're back in 1996. Love it. Reminded me how simple was the web back then.

"Toilet brushes re-bristled" - never knew that was done, and glad that's not my job.

There was also a Christmas store on the royal mile. Not sure if it still exists.

Old stock city quarters are almost universally mixed use here, commercial on the ground level and residential above. Living on ground level, with people passing by right in front of your window isn't exactly popular so those shops are increasingly staying empty and it's not just a result of the internet, but also the move of daily goods from small shops to supermarkets (of being size, smaller ones usually still available within walking distance). Unfortunately, some shops get converted to residential (it's higher rent now that the old guard of shops has mostly disappeared), others to small offices, but the most interesting are those extremely specialist ones that can only exist backed by online distribution. And it's not even limited to big places like Berlin. Realistically, a specialist store would be considered out of range if it is not in the surrounding quarters of either work or home, unless need is really pressing, so theres a bit of diminishing returns going on between larger city size and viability of specialist stores.

In Nuremberg, a city much smaller than Berlin I had a model rocket shop (strictly model rockets, absolutely no branching out into RC planes or fireworks) in walking distance, and one specialising into some specific subset off fishing lures, in a region completely lacking any fishing culture (the carp farms that are the traditional fish supply are harvested with partial draining and nets). A sub-kilometer move later, in a quarter developed mostly with residential ground floors, nothing like this exists. Still some empty shop fronts, but maybe your enough to drive commercial rents down to the point where "exotic online specialist with occasional walk-in business" becomes viable.

I don’t know about in Germany, but the huge malls are going the way of the dodo in the US.

My guess would be that the close of small shops is due more to sales lost to online shopping than the natural rise of rent costs.

> I had an Indian friend that told me that specializations in old cities was also geographically organized. One part of street would only sell pressure cookers while another side would sell watering cans.

That’s how London used to be, which is why the area around St Paul’s has roads like “Leather Lane”, “Milk Street”, and “Poultry”.

For a US example of this, see the Patel Motel Cartel (https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/04/magazine/a-patel-motel-ca...)

This is why I love Taiwan, so many interesting shops.

Small store size, walkable streets and alleyways, cheap rent, not many rules about what you can do. People will take care of the rest.

The legendary Sodabottleopenerwala - possibly apocryphal.

FWIW, there is likely to be a button shop wherever you got enough seamstresses, tailors, dressmakers and fashion industry.

Buttons are really something you have to see and touch in person.

As a child, my mother used to take me with her to "Parker Buttons" in downtown Pittsburgh. I remember plunging my arms elbows-deep into containers of shiny black buttons. Nothing else like it in the world.

Cash-friendly and bank unfriendly. I lived in Germany for a year and I haven't had to finish a branch so many times in my life as that year.

Just thinking about Cambridge shops made me sad about the terrible loss of Brian Jordan's music shop http://www.brianjordanmusic.co.uk/closure.asp

I imagine the premises for a lot of these types of businesses must be inherited. You can probably make enough to live pretty ok from a small business like this, especially if you aren't the sole bread-winner for your family.

From what I’ve seen and heard, that place closed some time between 1999 and 2008, although the shopfront remains unchanged even now. I last went past it in March, dog walking with a friend — and he used to buy tapes there.

Like, just audio cassette or all types of blank magnetic tape, or blank tape in general? Like masking-, sello-, elephant-tapes?

I used to live around the corner: I always wondered about that.

I do miss Norfolk Street Bakery though (which I hope is still going).

My sister works there. It's a very nice store, but I wouldn't describe it as hyper specialized. Maybe more of a general stationery/art supplies store, but with a lot of extra depth in some areas (architectural supplies etc).

New York City has tons of these too; they’re just generally not well-advertised since they many of them cater to a specific market. There are a few button stores in New York, mostly in the Garment District, but also on the upper east side. There are stores selling all kinds of obscure art supplies, kitchen equipment, and lab gear too.

To be fair, I’m not sure exactly where you’d buy a currywurst cushion, but there’s a shop selling bones and stuff near NYU, if you someday decide that your living in room needs more of a Natural History Museum vibe.

The difference is that you'll find specialists in Germany even where land isn't super cheap. I remember really enjoying Stuttgart a few years ago because I hadn't seen any supermarkets. I'm sure there's a Lidl and whatnot but instead we stopped by a green grocer, bakery, and butcher for dinner.

In Berlin I'm not surprised there's a meat furniture store.

When I lived in Seattle there was a kilt store.

Chicago had a button store in the last ten years or so, but it is gone. It became a Barneys New York.

Roaming through the Nevada desert a few years ago (Tonopah area, I can't remember exactly where) I came across a small town with a book store that sold nothing but old 1940's-1970's cowboy paperbacks. $1 each. I bought 50.

Many reasons.

First, WalMart doesn't have everything. Only a few people in any city are interested in buying specialty items, it doesn't make sense to WalMart to stock that everywhere when some stores will never have a sale. A specialty store brings in customers from all over the city.

A human who knows one product well is very useful. WalMart salesmen don't know their product. Going to a specialist who knows the product well makes sense because you can get advice. Also, WalMart as limited space: the specialist shop will often have the exact thing you need, while WalMart will have at best something similar, for real niche items you can't even get a substitute.

For the above to work you need a large enough population. The small hyper-specialist shop only works when there are enough people who will buy from it. Small towns in the middle of nowhere have a specialist store selling only farm equipment, you won't find that in the middle of a big city (you will on the edge). A big city will have specialist stores to support the industry (and hobbyists) in that town.

When the item needs to be custom fit you need a store. WalMart can fit glasses, but they don't know anything about pens. I bet many of you didn't know that some pens are custom adjusted to the user - there are enough people who like expensive pens to support pen shop in some cities. Likewise golf clubs, bowling balls...

>in real life, I mean, real estate is limited so why wouldn't darwinian market forces make a shop with product diversity + epsilon out compete a shop with a more niche spectrum of products

But can the employees advise me on which to buy?

I'll sometimes pay a premium to go to a specialty store, so I can speak to an expert.

(Ex: if I was going to buy a vaporizer, I'd probably go to a vape shop rather than spend days reading on the pros and cons of various models)

Product differentiation is much easier in person since you see & can touch the product. Plus having a specialist available to speak with regarding your needs is often valuable.

With online purchases, you're limited to pictures, price, technical specs to make decisions.

There is no Walmart in Berlin; nor any similarly sized super markets. The closest thing would be Lidl and Aldi but they tend to be much smaller.

One feature of Berlin is that it is very spread out and people mostly don't use cars to get around. It has a center technically but it's not where people live or shop. All the action is in the dozens of neighborhoods and micro neighborhoods around this. You can walk for two hours without leaving what most people would consider the downtown area or reasonably close to it. These micro-neighborhoods is where you find loads of small restaurants, bars, art galleries, and indeed weird, specialized stores and pop up stores. There are many thousands of these all over Berlin.

Part of the reason is simply that there's a lot of space for small stores all over building. Most apartment blocks have space on the ground floor. That type of space does not make sense for bigger chains since the locations are wrong and the spaces are too small. So if you want to open a small store for whatever, you can without spending too much money. Most of these efforts are short lived for obvious reasons but some of them succeed or at least survive.

Given that Berlin is crawling with tourists, foreign students, entrepreneurs, artists, etc. pretty much any time of the year, there's plenty of business for small quirky stores selling whatever. You don't attract tourists by being a bland boring franchise in Berlin. Star Bucks tried to open up a branch near where I live. They pretty much got laughed away and got replaced by a Poke bowl takeaway within a year. Just not a thing when you have several of the top coffee bars within a 3 minute walk.

Post internet, retail is increasingly specialized. You get all the staples online. Amazon is huge in Germany and Amazon Prime is operating in Berlin with their full set of services (including groceries).

I'm pretty sure that what you described is happening. It's just that the process has not yet been completed. I don't think these shops are "the future of retail" like it says in the article.

What another comment said about showrooms makes a lot of sense. Also there are some fringe businesses that will never go online. Portrait photography businesses come to mind. Pharmacies are a thing where I live, because subsidized prescription only drugs can only be sold there.

But apart from that I wonder what will happen to all the smaller sales rooms in the inner cities?

>The majority of Antstore’s sales take place via the company’s website

I think they kind of act as showrooms for online sales.

Tourism is a relevant reason.

Not only is it a trope, UHF satirized this over twenty years ago. Spatula City!

https://youtu.be/2XbCWmY0eqY

In theory it does not make a lot sense. In practice, I am amazed at how much crap most online webshops are.

In a shop I can browse through the wares much easier. I can examine them, look at the size and specs, feel the weight and texture, get ideas.

More often than not, crucial specs of the product I am looking at are not available. Dimensions and weights are often missing, I often can't look at more than 5 or 6 articles at the time.

Webshops are great when you know exactly what you need. They are hell if your need is "4 or 5 buttons that would look good on that fabric"

The answer is probably that shop owners would rather work in a shop that satisfies online orders than in a warehouse.

On the contrary, I think many of these particular shops shown in the article can only work as brick-and-mortar. Think about the button guy. He's probably a one-man show. How is he going to enter 10,000s of SKUs in a webshop, and maintain accurate stock numbers?

If you're in an area where the postman (or any delivery service) sucks, online shopping becomes a hassle.

Wording. Your comment feels more like vitriol than fact statement, regardless of being correct.

It’s an interesting point. Is there a perceptible difference for Berliners between E/W shop types?

In my post-Soviet city that doesn't seem to be the case. I know of a shop that just sells car batteries - literally nothing else. They have maybe 30 products in stock, and can order it if you need something else. I don't think they have a web store.

It doesn't seem that factual, accepted and well-researched when this article directly contradicts your statement:

> In such a skewed retail landscape, many small shops found they could compete by specialising in goods neglected by generalist department stores, especially since retail space was cheap and in plentiful supply behind the Iron Curtain.

So while you may be right, you may also be wrong. Maybe it's not as black&white as you make it out to be.

Coming from commie part of Europe I feel ya. I've recently saw documentary about Japanese family that makes same product for third generation, this would not be possible here as communists didn't allowed private business, people get separated from soil during collectivization and the link got broken. It will take many years to get restored, if ever...

What do you mean "a legitimate need"?

Why do people need paint in more than one or two colors? Why do people need multiple styles of clothes, beyond a "summer uniform" and "winter uniform"? Why do people bother to maintain both vi and emacs when only one is necessary?

Most of the time, any tape will do, but sometimes you want the perfect paisley to complement your wrapping paper choice. Since most people don't care most of the time, most stores that sell tape won't have more than one or two kinds, so you go to a specialty retailer to find the unusual stuff for unusual circumstances.

I’d imagine this line of thinking is what Apple hopes for, people burdened with the luxury of choice who just want someone to tell them what they want.

Color is not the only variable here, there are many variables in picking a tape for a job. Of course usually just plain tape will do, but the article gave a very good example:

“Imagine you are a stage technician and you need to tape a lamp that gets very hot to a pillar,” Ghouneim says. “If you go to [DIY store chain] Bauhaus, they wouldn’t know what to do. But I can tell you that you need a polyester film with a special type of silicon glue that can stand up to 300 degrees. I have sticky tapes in my store that mere mortals would never dare to dream of.

My experience of such stores is just the opposite. When I don't care what kind of <something> I get, I just go to the supermarket or buy whatever is cheap on ebay. The choice takes a couple of minutes.

When I go to a specialist store, which I do every so often, my choice has been made before I walk in. That's why I'm there; because I already know what I want, and I know that I can't find what I want in the supermarket or by trawling eBay. I'm just hoping the specialist store has it or can get it. I spend less time choosing in the specialist store.

Adhesive tape is an incredibly sophisticated and versatile product. Yes, there are silly products (emoji duct tape) but there are also an immense variety of tapes with uniquely useful properties.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/All...

Your comment seems well made, and to make a good point.

We waste a lot of productivity on providing choice.

I don't think pure utilitarianism is the answer, but it seems we could do better.

But then, noone needs party balloons at all ...