Shopping had a different structure during the Georgian period and this post is little more than an overview of a massive subject.  Food shopping was a daily routine and based mainly around the markets all over the City.  Coal was delivered to the house by men who built up rounds and rented storage space in cellars in each locality, then carried individual sacks (or small barrow-loads) to each house.  This was also the same with water, which was usually local and clean well water, but also came from as far away as Epsom, or even Buxton for the discerning palate.  Water was delivered in hods, hence the term 'hod-carrier', now used mainly in the building trade.  Milkmaids who worked for a dairyman or woman carried their milk about the streets using a yoke and shouting their wares.  Self-employed milkmaids (almost always Welsh) lead their cow on their rounds and milked it at the door, ringing a bell in each square or when she arrived in the street.  Babies and those with a cow's milk intolerance (yes, it was recognised then) could have milk from the asses who were also led around the streets.  Pretty girls were deployed from the market gardens to sell perishable foods and herbs such as cherries, asparagus and lavender, from baskets often carried on their heads (probably not in this weather though).

Although most food was sold from roving basket carriers or market stalls, some foods with a longer shelf-life, such as cheeses and preserved meats were sold in large warehouses around the Strand, Covent Garden and Leadenhall in the City.  Many of these warehouses specialized according to nationality, and a few xenophobic pamphlets of the late 17thC complain of the stinking garlic sausages hung up to dry in the windows of the French warehouses.  Early shops, and particularly those trading before the fire of London were simply part of the house where the shopkeeper lived.  Beneath the front window was one large shutter on a hinge, which would be propped up in the morning, parallel with the window-sill.  The window were then opened and goods put out on the table, or arranged inside on shelving (typical of bakeries).  A visitor to London (Lorenzo Magalotti) remarked in his diary that these shops were 'mostly under the care of well-dressed women' who were aided by their young apprentices.  This seems an excellent system, appealing to almost all buyers.  It also sheds light on the employment of women in the 18thC (more in another post), who were not simply expected to stay at home, meek and mild, but to get involved in running the thousands of little family businesses throughout London.    

After the Fire, many shops, particularly those selling more expensive items were rebuilt with room inside to show goods, and the family moved upstairs.  The Royal Exchange was the model for these shops, which were fitted out in a commodious fashion and again, staffed mainly by women and the apprentices.  Fixed shop windows, where a permanent display of books, wallpapers, paintings, carving, silks and fabrics, gloves and lace could remain for longer than a day, became popular.  Many tailors' and dressmakers' shops doubled as places to drink tea and coffee and meet with the girls for a natter.  Most tailors and dressmakers sold clothes off the peg which could then be altered by seamstresses who often hung out wooden needles or signs from their lodgings when they were available to work.  It was a matter of knocking on the door, trying on the garments, discussing what needed to be done and picking them up later: an excellent arrangement (Samuel Pepys bizarre obsession with his 'little seamstress' makes interesting reading.  There were two garden centres selling everything from tools to seedlings to trees in the Strand for people with nothing better to do with their Sunday afternoon.  The pet-shops on the north side of Covent Garden sold everything from song-thrushes caught on Hampstead Heath to marmosets in little outfits.  There was a household emporium near Holborn specializing in domestic pewter for kitchens and taverns, but also buckets, spoons and other treen and there were plenty of opticians who tested the eyes and sold spectacles both made to measure and off the peg (plain green and blue lenses were also used to help with light sensitivity and quite possibly, dyslexia, by stabilizing the visual field).  

The largest and grandest shops were obviously those catering to the rich, including Thomas Chippendale's cabinet-making workshop and showroom, John Burroughs, the furniture-maker on Cornhill, Moxon's the scientific instrument maker in Warwick Lane, Paul de Lamerie, the goldsmith and jeweller in Soho.  These shops were beautifully fitted out and allowed customers to browse at their considerable stock accompanied by an apprentice to show them the merits of each piece.  This allowed the apprentices to learn about the stock, and about the nature of retailing.  It also helped them to build clientele which they could either take with them when they set up their own business, or for long-term relationships with whilst working for their master.  Customers were served with tea and coffee, shown pattern-books, entertained and generally spoiled.

Shops were dependent upon the rhythm of daylight hours.  Food shops opened at dawn and stayed open until they had sold out for the day, or until dark.  Most other shops opened at 8am and stayed open until nightfall, or 9pm in the summer.  It's also worth bearing in mind that as a nation of shopkeepers, there were no chain-stores and each shop traded as they saw fit; much more interesting than the modern high street.

Anyone interested in learning more would be advised to read Dorothy Davis's excellent History of Shopping.