So far we’ve explicitly discussed outposts, dark stores and (commercial) warehouses. The tag for outposts is contested because it’s not a shop in the traditional sense, the tag for dark stores is contested because it’s only just documented, barely in use and definitely not an amenity in the traditional sense, and we have no good tag for commercial warehouses at all (I don’t count office and building).
We can make a descriptive Wiki page like Water management - OpenStreetMap Wiki or we can start writing documentation and proposals for tags, and possibly include other content in the mix.
For dark stores we can decide to put dark_store in a larger key like commercial or logistics, or we can have it as main key and use the values of shop=* to specify the product types that are sold, or we can make the dark store-equivalent of shop tags a sub-tag of a greater logistics key.
But that’s enough brainstorming for me this evening.
What happens to shop=outpost is tangential, a “corner case” to this, but it’s good we gave it a kiss.
What happens to warehouse, commercial, retail, landuse, and logistics seems like it is both “curing cement” (in the case of landuse, warehouse, commercial, retail) and “wet paint” in the case of logistics.
What OP asks is how to tag a dark_store (that’s what we’ve determined these are, and are called, widely). I’d posit that a node be tagged with dark_store=grocery + brand=* and a 100-word or so wiki for Key:dark_store=* could go up with a couple of values in a short table (and a taginfo blurb of “once, on a node”): yes and grocery.
I could (boldly?) see an argument made (without making it) that this discussion is de facto consensus to go directly to a wiki entry of Key:dark_store=* (with a 25-word definition, a two-entry, perhaps positing a third for office_supplies… table) that links to Wikipedia’s Dark store article.
Like throwing a dart at a dartboard, and it doesn’t “stick real hard,” but it does stick, and it is at least on the board, if not close to a bullseye.
Any takers? There aren’t that many roles to play, somebody enters a node tagged “just so” somebody (else, it would be good) writes a qwiki saying “here is what I see in one node of our data.” And “Bob’s your uncle.” Postscript: no Proposal required. “Just the facts” as they happened.
Edit: The wiki links to this discussion, its Talk page could be used going forward.
could be integrated into the greater “schema” of both company=logistics and the Proposal for the Key logistics=*. This assumes the creation of the / a new key/tag (like storage_shop=grocery), and then “back-linking” this into those two logistics-related wiki.
thinking about integration, maybe logistics could be a main tag and the link would be
logistics=storage_shop (or dark_store)
or if the new main key should be a more generic term, “commercial” describes it well but leads to confusion because of landuse, the “company” key could fit the role.
company=storage_shop
but this would overlap with logistics: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/company#values
hence it would be:
company=logistics
logistics=storage_shop
storage_shop=grocery
it would integrate with the logistics scheme, but is not elegant, the “company=logistics + logistics=storage_shop” tags would be the same for all storage shops so you could just as well not add them at all.
I admire efforts to integrate these. I’ve already changed my mind since you replied to my first tagging idea, now the next (second, current) one is to use Key:dark_store (instead of storage_shop)! That’s on me and this simultaneously moving thread.
So, maybe a one-for-one swap of those two (storage_shop → dark_store) works for you?
But I don’t think there needs to be company=logistics and/or logistics=dark_store, together, necessarily. Unless it exists, in which case, OK, “build a ladder to climb on” (if you need to semantically make sense of it like that). Because it may not be the case that a particular dark_store “fits into” “logistics.” It might. It could. But it doesn’t have to. For all we know, Tesco might call it this, it might not. Some observer of objective reality might chime in, I don’t know.
There are a handful of dark_store values, all we need is one node tagged with key dark_store, with a value of grocery, to denote such a thing. I could write a short wiki, so, again, any volunteers to “add such a node?” (Hint, maybe you add such a node inside of Way: Tesco dot com Dark Store (46034800) | OpenStreetMap. At the exit depot?) C’mon, let’s get the ball rolling! (Other hint: brand=Tesco).
Please take further discussion to the wiki’s Talk page, which doesn’t exist, so you’d have to create it.
Further touch-ups to things like Tag:company=logistics or shop=outpost can be taken up in their respective wiki, and linked to this wiki, where helpful. Perhaps shop=* gets a new entry, noting how dark_store=* is a whole new key, but has begun to inherit a value from shop=*.
That wasn’t so hard, was it? Call it rapid-consensus, streamlined Discourse-to-wiki tag creation. Be bold, OSM. If what we did here is broken, we can fix it, and without tears or rancor. But that happened in about 24 hours…not bad for a global project in many languages and regions with all sorts of methods to do things. We can do this.
Edit: But we can only do this as a community together.
dark_store is good because it is what these things are actually called in British English. “outpost” just means something at an unusually large distance. For example, the Menai Bridge store - the one in NW Wales - could be described as an outpost of the Waitrose chain because it’s a long distance from the rest of their stores.
No, it really isn’t. A shop=outpost (as defined in the OSM wiki, ignoring whether it is a good tag or not) is actually a shop that an end-customer might actually visit. A warehouse for an online grocery (or any online only business) is not.
industrial=warehouse, also suggested above, which might be a good fit for larger examples but perhaps not the smaller ones talked about at the top of the thread
My local brand supermarket is on a crossing, because you can not stop there by car, in front of the supermarket, only a loading place for hgv, they have a location further on ( a old shop, with load_parking in front. There you can pickup, the produtcs, in a box or black isolated box.You buy the products online.
So nearby. A kind of dépendance, depot.
Is this shop=outpost?
Mostly after working hours it is busy.
I think, the order is prepared at the retail distribution centre not at the local shop.
The supermarket delivers also at home from there, with a small hgv.
I never ordered there.
Hybride concept.
@Allroads asks a relevant question about the distinction between delivery=only and pickup=yes (the latter is not a real tag, though neither is the former, and why I added delivery=yes, which is a real tag, to the dark_store=* wiki).
As has been repeated here, a shop=outpost is absolutely distinct from a dark_store=* as the latter does not allow pickup and the former is not oriented towards delivery. There may be exceptions, in which case the outpost could add the tag delivery=yes and the dark_store might get a newly-coined tag like pickup=yes…these are fine-tunings we can add as we learn more. After all, these things are kind of new, there are only a handful of them in OSM, we’re just starting to see the “spaghetti stick” as we have thrown it against the wall.
Earlier in this topic, I hinted at the possibility of dark_store=office_supplies because I can imagine one of those (in addition to groceries): they might exist (or emerge), too. But it is crucial we make a distinction (and I think we do, I simply sharpen it here): in my little city there IS a “big box office supplies store” (you can walk in, sit in office chairs, try out printers, buy ink cartridges, a ream of paper, a nifty briefcase…) which ALSO delivers, though you need a “business account” with them for delivery. This isn’t a dark_store=office_supplies, although getting ink and paper delivered seems like a net equivalent. Rather, it is a shop=office_supplies with delivery=yes, and that is not a dark_store (which can’t be visited in-person, but only online).
I have added some text to our Tag:amenity=warehouse - OpenStreetMap Wiki stating that tag might become deprecated in favor of dark_store=* (if “dark store” is indeed what is being denoted).
Taginfo cites <200 amenity=warehouse instances, ~60% ways, ~40% nodes. It may be appropriate that an automated edit “bring these forward” by re-tagging them as dark_store=*, but I say it is too early for that. Let’s digest all of this (and maybe burp) and take it from there at some future date.
Edit: While it is my belief that amenity=warehouse “isn’t terrible,” I believe dark_store is much better, for at least two reasons: #1, as @Richard said, “this is what we call those here” (using British English, OSM’s lingua franca) and #2, ANYthing OSM can do to prevent further “overloading” of the already-overloaded amenity=* key is a good thing.
How to tag dark stores that do offer self-pickup then? It is not a shop=outpost because there is no service (no cashier etc.) but according to the current text on dark_store=* the implied delivery=only does not seem correct, then.
Yes, that was a potential sticky-issue that was discussed earlier in this thread: should we say that delivery=only (again, not a real tag, though delivery=yes is) is implied in the tag dark_store=* or should we add an explicit tag of pickup=yes (again, not a real tag, it would have to be coined and documented) if pick-up is an option at a dark store?
We chose the former. If we find vast examples of dark stores which DO allow pick-up, we might have to change this in the wiki, coin pickup=yes and re-tag some places to properly harmonize. However — and I stress this is guesswork / speculation on my part (which I don’t like to do as a rule) — it seems that every example I’ve seen of “dark store” (not that many, truthfully) DO NOT allow pick-up, though we should allow for that possibility in the future. Let’s “cross that bridge as we come to it.”
I offer genuinely that I check myself at what appears to be a contradiction, with no judgment about it, rather “hm, curious, this.”
As it seems to me that this is an inherent contradiction. Such a thing, a “dark store that offers self-pickup” would largely cease to be what it claims to be, in my mind. But it’s early, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. I suppose it is possible, pretend I’m from Missouri and “show me” (one).
There appears to be a disconnect. Maybe it’s around what we say is an outpost (which maybe delivers) isn’t what we say is a dark_store which is literally built to have nothing to do with people from the outside world (accepting “orders received, at a depot, by bicycle, pedestrian or automobile”). It’s an outpost / depot or it’s a dark_store, rather mutually exclusive and has nothing to do with YOU (the consumer) unless you are also an associate of the place, like as one of the bicycle delivery personnel. These seem to be “different animals” and maybe they are merging into some class or family of logistics, OK, I’m listening. But that maybe-emerging future perfect-spot of efficiency to feed people (or whatever) is hazy, at best. Let’s describe reality, and what we do know.
We put things into buckets as best we can. Right now, what “are/were” a couple hundred amenity=warehouse things might or might not become tagged some flavor of a “OSM describes it as” dark_store. So maybe some of those start to or do “migrate over” into becoming dark_store, “somewhat relieving” the burdened amenity=* key. That’s what’s goin’ on. We built this prairie fire, it’s burning. I’d say things are fine: a small fire burning as we intend it to burn, good for us.
In listening mode. Digesting. Maybe we burp, I don’t know (yet). We’re fine.
Is this a criteria? “No cashier”, no payment on the spot possible, no outpost, what is my example, above? Supermarket, dependance, 400 meter further, same franchise owner.
You go to the door, ring the bell, the employee opens, makes small talk, gives you the box, or pushes the trolley of boxes to the car, some have not even been inside.
Also this could be on backside of a supermarket store. At a service road. This pickup entrance, as described above, does this need it’s own poi? For online order.
You can’t go inside and shop by yourself or pay there, but you can shop & pay via app and then pick it up yourself. I asked them if it was possible, they said “yes”. So who gives the stuff to me then if there is no cashier? I figure one of the delivery guys who hang out at their base anyway while they wait for orders (A “pick up” order for them is basically an order to their own location, I guess).
So, when compared to shop=outpost, the only difference seems to be that for the shop=outpost, you’d expect that there is always service, i.e. always someone behind the counter. (That the shop actually has any on-site stock seems to be optional according to the wiki documentation of that tag.) Now, the fact that you can always expect there to be service so that you can pick up your order seems to me to be an almost irrelevant distinction to that of a dark store which offers self-pickup. In the latter case, there would be someone present just for you to give you your order.
This is why I documented dark stores as a variation of shop=outpost early in the discussion (I reverted it after I realized the discussion is not over yet).
Well, 2 jumped on it, 1 in Rome and 1 London. Offering webshop as an alternate option, 182 uses per TI, albeit probably the onliners have their own apps to hold the customer closer to the chest.
So, anyway, in regards to my prior point, I do not think it is that important. There could be an additional tag like pickup=yes or whatever in the future (analogous to takeaway=yes) to mark that distinction.
It looks like the discussion reached some sort of consensus that dark_store=* shall be used for such shops, right? I see people already created a wiki page for dark_store and updated the wiki page for amenity=warehouse to suggest using dark_store instead.
I invite everyone who participated in this discussion to give a last look at the related wiki pages and help clean up any mistakes, ambiguous wording, links and all that