Talk:Brick and mortar business

Terminology (move page)
The proper phrase for what is described here is "brick and mortar", not "bricks and mortar". There is a subtle difference, but when contrasting eCommerce from traditional commerce, the former is more generally used.

Brick And Mortar

A traditional "street-side" business that deals with its customers face to face in an office or store that the business owns or rents. Web-based businesses usually have lower costs and greater flexibility than brick-and-mortar operations.

... The local grocery store and the corner bank are examples of "brick and mortar" companies.

bricks and mortar

Basic and essential, as in Matthew Arnold's essay (1865): "Margate, that bricks-and-mortar image of British Protestantism." This phrase transfers essential building materials to other fundamental matters. It also may be used more literally to denote a building or buildings (whether or not made of bricks and mortar), as in The alumni prefer to see their donations in the form of bricks and mortar. [Mid-1800s]


 * Support - An article should be as properly titled as possible when this does not cause any other conflicts. TonyTheTiger 19:25, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved
I have moved the page, per the above discussion. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

UK reference
I've heard "bricks and mortar business" (note the plural) used here in the UK; a quick Google-check shows that while that specific phrase is not terribly common in the .uk space, the more common UK form for the base phrase is "bricks and mortar" (by a factor of about seven to two). A decent web reference for this usage as opposed to the singular is ; the on-line OED lists the plural as well. Just to explain why I included both the singular and plural forms for the UK. Wooster (talk) 19:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Remove business from the title
The term "brick and mortar" is quite useful, and does not need "business" to be tagged on to the end. It can refer to any entity which has a physical location. Or, for my selfish purposes, can be used in context to refer to an entity which does not occupy a physical address, such as a group, large organization, or club. I just learned wiki speak today, or else I would have moved it. Thanks! SingDeep 09:19, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Agree. Hence moved because it's rather obvious. Lots of things can be described with the generic brick and mortar (brit. "Bricks and mortar"), and thus business usage can then appear sectioned on that page. --Jimthing (talk) 02:09, 5 September 2011 (UTC)