Trend watchers predict a return of the ‘roaring twenties’ after this Corona period. A dark period of crisis is often followed by an active period where the population takes full advantage of the ‘light after dark’. The 1920s after World War I and the Golden Sixties after the difficult postwar period are examples of this. Certainly from the late ’50s and into the ’60s, ‘the sky was the limit’. The emergence and wide spread of new technologies made people’s lives easier with the washing machine, the television, the car and mass tourism. During this period, for example, the famous Boeing 747 Jumbo jet was also developed as an aircraft for mass tourism. Many of these technologies blew over from the US, in the wake of the post-war Marshall Plan. This was also true in the shopping field. In the 1960s, the first true self-service supermarkets were launched in analogy to supermarkets in the US. The first self-service supermarket in continental Europe, opened in 1957, was in fact the Delhaize branch on the Place Flagey in Brussels (Belgium). In these stores, people could do their own shopping with a shopping cart. Before that, consumers were served “at the counter” at the local grocery store that offered a relatively limited assortment.

In the 1950s and 1960s, there were many retailers in the cities for which consumers came to town specifically. After all, in an ordinary community these specialty stores were not present. People usually did their shopping by public transport or bicycle. There were hardly any cars or large parking lots in the streets of the cities. Almost all goods transport was done by van, by ‘triporteur’, a delivery tricycle, or even by horse and cart. Villages had a bakery, a butcher, a small grocer, a bank branch and a newsagent. In addition, there were services such as the milk and soup shop, the baker and the beer merchant who came to the house. For other purchases, consumers had to go to nearby towns, or they could order something by mail with “the catalogue” of 3Suisses. You then had to wait a few weeks for the packages. From the 1970s onward, many of these customs faded into the background. Today’s people in their twenties and thirties have not known the milk and soup shop and can hardly imagine a mail order catalog. You readers may be frowning now, but we are convinced that the next decade will be marked by the reintroduction of many customs from that period.

There are a number of reasons why we will soon be talking more about retro mobility, retro logistics and retro shopping. On the one hand, especially cities, but also municipalities have been striving for a number of years to reduce car use and freight transport. The introduction of environmental zones, the revival of public transport in cities, the closure of car parks and the pursuit of increased use of cargo bikes fit into this framework. In essence, cities are actually dreaming of neighborhoods and mobility as it was in the 1950s, with few cars, dense public transport, ecological transport with the “triporteur” and a large number of specialty stores in the city center.

Since the late 1960s, large supermarkets have pushed out the small independent grocer. However, these large supermarkets along major approach roads are on the decline. In every small community or urban neighborhood, branches of AH to GO, 7-11, Tesco Express, Stop&Shop, the grocers of yesteryear, are reopening. During the pandemic, it is not by chance that these local stores, as well as eCommerce, have done particularly well. ECommerce is considered by many to be the “killer” of small merchants and the high street. However, mail order companies such as 3Suisses, the book club and La Redoute have been around for many decades. Only the ordering method and the delivery time have changed. In essence, distance buying and home deliveries are not new, it just feels innovative.  3Suisses was actually the Zalando of the 1950s!

The decline in car ownership, already very noticeable among young people, means that we increasingly want things delivered to our homes and that we buy smaller quantities at a time. On the one hand, home deliveries of food by Hello Fresh, Deliveroo, Delhaize.be, etc. will continue to rise. In the past, the soup and vegetable shop, butcher and baker also delivered to the home. In addition, it is clear that what we will still buy in the store, such as fresh products, we will get more quickly in the neighborhood supermarket, just like in the past at the grocery store.

Today, there are a lot of “innovation projects” on logistics, mobility, car use and local commerce running in governments. Are we essentially talking about innovations? No, we are actually talking about old habits, often with a contemporary IT sauce on top. There is nothing wrong with this because “History repeats it selves, always”. The Corona pandemic has only accelerated these trends.