There's a chain here called "5 Below" which has the schtick of selling
things for $5 or less.
There's a lot of it that's aimed at teen girls, but the electronics
section is usually a source of good stuff - wireless charger pads for
$5 ain't bad.

But the place sparked the idea for me of a Starport/Startown chain
called "2UP" which imports cheap consumer electronics from 2 tech
levels above local. On a TL8 world, they'd sell bottom of the line
TL10 tablet knockoffs, for example. The stuff that people on a TL10
world would see as too lame to be worth carrying.

On the other hand, imagine importing iPhone 1's and the original
Android phones  along with cheap 802.11a routers to the 1900's...
preloaded with something like Serval Mesh. They'd sell like hotcakes.

On Sat, Dec 28, 2019 at 11:44 PM Graham Donald - gndonald2001 at
yahoo.com.au (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>
> I was just wandering through my local shopping center and spotted a couple of things that might add 'color' to a spaceport or startown. The first are the stalls that sell small electronic gadgets ranging from custom covers to mobile phones to small power banks, data cables, speakers and things you can run off powerbanks like fans and reading lights. I've also seen a shopfront version of this that looked like something you'd find in a startown, the entrance was festooned with illuminated signs (Some of which advertised the shop, others were for sale.), and LED tape, inside was an array of gadgets ranging from cheap security equipment, to wireless speakers, powerbanks and lots of cheap data cables.
>
> The second is more interesting, it's a quasi-chain of shopfront barbers shops where the patron goes to the entrance, pays an upfront fixed cost (Not only much lower than a standard barbers shop, but the same irrespective of gender.) into a machine and gets a numbered ticket. The patron then waits for the number on their ticket to come up. Once it does they take a seat and someone will cut their hair (At the one I saw the hairdressers all seemed to be young 'university student' age people.) while they watch an entertaining video (One I visited had a 'Candid Camera' type show playing on small 'tablet' type computers.).
>
>
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