https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:shop%3Dbuilding_materials and Tag:shop=trade - OpenStreetMap Wiki is not making it clear
Second page has
A place of business that sells to a particular trade or trades, but normally also retails to normal consumers.
what contradicts claimed distinction at Talk:Tag:shop=building materials - OpenStreetMap Wiki
I suspect that shop=building_materials and shop=trade + trade=building_supplies is effectively identical.
| Mateusz_Konieczny
November 20 |
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Tag:shop=building_materials - OpenStreetMap Wiki and Tag:shop=trade - OpenStreetMap Wiki is not making it clear
Second page has
A place of business that sells to a particular trade or trades, but normally also retails to normal consumers.
what contradicts claimed distinction at Talk:Tag:shop=building materials - OpenStreetMap Wiki
I suspect that shop=building_materials and shop=trade + trade=building_supplies is effectively identical.
I would say neither is actually helpful for most practical use cases, too generic. Should be structured into trades. “building supplies” isn’t actually a trade, is it? Still it is by far the mostly used value https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/trade#values
E.g. imagine you wanted to build a small concrete wall in your garden. Could you just go to one of these and buy sand, pebbles and cement?
Or if you wanted to repair your roof, would they sell you the roof tiles you need? Or wood for construction? Or a radiator for heating? A bathroom sink? Marble tiles? Ducts? Electrical installation material?
I think of a shop=trade as being more likely to be a store where you ask for what you need at the counter and they go and fetch it or deliver it to your truck, with just a small show area out front, while most other shop=* categories are likely to let you browse everything (other than shop=catalogue). Some shop=doityourself do have trade counters that provide the counter service for people with a list of exactly what they want to make them appeal to both.
This is just a gut feeling though, as some trade shops do lay everything out an have you browse them like a normal shop aimed at consumers and for things like building materials I could expect them to go either way between “ask at the counter” or “big warehouse/yard you can walk through”.
I’d quite like an explicit tag for this sort of “shop style” information, but I don’t think we have any.
In Germany there are 2 types of shops selling building materials:
The traditional “Baustoffhandel” = building material supplier which serves mainly the trade/craft with all kinds of building material. This was traditionally a counter business as described by @InsertUser and is still today for some items but most of those shops do have a self service section also, specially for tools and other small items, but the core business is still the the stuff needed in large quantities for the construction of a building like bricks and stones for masonary work, roofing tiles, reinforcement steel, paving stones and the like which has to be delivered in truck load quantitiy to the site. This stuff usually is handled by trade customers and not that much by DIY customers.
The “Baumarkt” which came up in the 70s to cover the increasing requirements of the private DIY customers, offering a a range of building supplies and tools for private customers on a self service base. As the range of goods has been broadened over the years today a Baumarkt is like a supermarket for all kind of hardware, household goods, tools and building supplies.
Both types of business are still operated in Germany and one one can still distinguish the business by the target customer groups which is the trade customer for “Baustoffhandel” (although they do have lots of private customers as well) and the private customer for “Baumarkt” (although having lots of trade customers also). That is why I’d say 2 different tags make sense in Germany.
The tag shop=building_material is not documented in the german wiki and just a duplicate of shop=trade + trade=building_supplies imho. I would support a deprecation.