Guides · Shop · 13 min read · Updated September 2026

The shop

The oldest paid consultation in the trade and the one the manuals were written for, since the men who wrote them were paid by merchants. The mouth of the shop and the bright hall inside it, the counter where the shopkeeper can see who comes in, the god of wealth on the side wall, the path that winds and the strip inside the door that nobody sees, what the shopping research counted with a stopwatch, and the difference between arranging a room and promising a profit.

Oriented S 180°

Metal

Fig. 01 A shop at dusk from the pavement, which is where this guide's first test is taken. The manuals call the door a shop's mouth and ask that the room behind it be visible from the street before anything in it is sold.

Feng shui was paid for by merchants long before it was bought by householders, and the commercial manuals show it: the shop has more rules than the bedroom and they are more specific. Where the door stands, how far in the first table sits, which wall the till takes, which way the god of wealth faces, what may be seen from the street and what may not. A century later a man with a video camera stood in American shops and counted what customers actually did, and the two lists agree more often than either would expect. This guide gives the shop as the manuals arrange it, the same shop as the shopping research measures it, the plan they make together, and the line between arranging a room and promising a profit, which the tradition’s own writers were clearer about than the people selling it now.

The mouth, and what is behind it

1The mouth, off the axis, opening into the shop and not onto a wall
2The landing inside it, the bright hall of the manuals and the strip the cameras found nobody looks at
3The drift to the right, and the first table set in it
4The counter in command, a wall behind it and the door in view
5The god of wealth on the side wall, facing in, never at the door
6The stock door, out of the customer’s line and kept shut

Plan 01 A shop, read twice A shop of eight metres by six, read by the commercial manuals and by the shopping research together, with the street at the foot of the plan. The mouth is the door and the manuals ask it to open into the room rather than onto a wall or a pillar, and to stand off the middle of the frontage so that what enters turns rather than runs; inside it they ask for a bright hall, a clear stretch that the shop does not sell from, which is the same strip Underhill's cameras found customers walking through without registering what stands on it. The tradition then wants the path to wind, and the research finds it winding already, to the right: the dashed line is the drift, and the table a few paces in and to the right of the door is what catches it, which a retail consultant calls the power display and the manuals would call the thing that turns the qi. The counter stands at the back on the side away from the door's line, with the wall behind it and the whole shop and the door in view — the fine dashed line is that sightline — which is the command position given to the person who must see everyone; the till is on the counter and the god of wealth shelf is on the side wall facing into the room, never facing the door, since a god who watches the door watches the money leave. The stock door is at the back and out of the customer's line. Nothing on this plan is a promise about takings: it is a room arranged so that a customer can see what is for sale and the shopkeeper can see the customer.

The manuals read a shop from its door, which they call the mouth, qi kou, and the front door guide gives the word its general sense. For a shop they ask three things of it. It should open into the room and not onto a wall, a pillar or the back of a display, since what comes in should see the shop and not an obstacle. It should stand off the middle of the frontage, so that what enters turns rather than runs straight through — a door on the axis with a back door behind it is the chuan tang, the piercing hall, which the doors inside guide draws for a house and which the commercial manuals treat as money crossing the shop and leaving by the other end. And it should be wider rather than taller if the frontage allows, because the mouth is read as the measure of what the business can take in. Knapp’s surveys of the shophouses of the southern towns and Davison’s of Singapore record the same three points in plan after plan, and the shophouse essay gives the building type they belong to.

Fig. 02 What the door opens onto The same shop with the same mouth, and the four things that are usually behind it. In the first the door opens onto floor, and the floor a few paces in is left clear, which is the bright hall the manuals ask for and the strip the shopping research found customers walk through without registering; the dashed line is the walk in, and it bends. In the second a wall or a partition stands a pace inside the door, so that the mouth is open from the street and shut from the inside. In the third the obstacle is a display unit with its back to the door, which is the commonest version of the same fault and the hardest to see, because from behind the counter it looks like a shop full of goods. In the fourth the door and the back door stand on one axis, which is the chuan tang, the piercing hall, and the manuals read it as what comes in going straight out again; the remedy is to offset one of the two doors or to put something across the line, not to shut the back door. Nothing here is measured against takings; what is drawn is what a person coming through the door meets.

Inside the door the manuals want a bright hall, the ming tang: a clear stretch that the shop does not sell from, a few paces deep, where a person who has just come in from the street can stop. It is the same request the entrance page makes of a house, at the scale of a business, and it is the rule most often broken, because the square metres nearest the door are the ones a shopkeeper is most tempted to fill.

Which way a customer turns

The tradition asks that the path through a shop wind rather than run: a straight aisle from the door to the back wall is the same fault as the piercing hall, and the remedy is a table, a screen or a change of level a few paces in, set so that the walk bends around it. The shopping research finds the bend already there. Underhill’s cameras record a consistent drift to the right in countries that drive on the right, the first substantial display a customer meets being the one a few paces in and to that side; the tradition would call the table that catches the drift the thing that turns the qi, and a retail consultant calls it the power display. Both put it in the same square metre.

Two things follow that the manuals and the cameras also agree on. An aisle must be wide enough that a customer is not brushed from behind, or they leave the display: Underhill’s people timed shoppers abandoning goods they had stopped for when the gap was too narrow, and Hall’s measured distances and Sommer’s seating work give the reason, which is that a stranger inside arm’s reach is a stranger to be got away from. And a shop with one route through it holds people longer than a shop that is read at a glance from the door, which the manuals say as a preference for a room that reveals itself in stages, and which the garden essay shows the same tradition doing with a wall and a moon gate.

The counter, the till and the god

The counter is the shop’s command position, and the manuals are as firm about it as they are about the bed. It stands toward the back, on the side away from the door’s line, with a wall behind it and the whole room and the door in view; the shopkeeper should see who comes in before they are inside, and should not have their back to the street or to a stockroom door. The command position essay gives the rule and the workplaces guide gives it for an office; the plan above places it for a shop of eight metres by six, and the drawing below puts it beside the arrangement most small shops actually have, which is the counter just inside the door with its back to the window.

The till sits on the counter and not by the window. The god of wealth, cai shen, takes a shelf on a side wall facing into the room, never facing the door, since a god who looks at the door looks at the money leaving; the household gods essay gives the shelf, its height and its offerings. Emmons’s survey of Hong Kong businesses in the early nineties found the shelf in most of the shops he visited and found the owners consulting a geomancer about its wall and the till’s before anything else in the premises, which is a fair measure of what the trade is actually asked for.

Fig. 03 The till, twice, in a shop of five metres by four with its door and window on the street. A: the counter where the commercial manuals put it, on the side wall toward the back, so that the person at it sees the door and the whole shop without standing in the door’s line, has a solid wall behind, and has the floor of the shop, the bright hall, in front; the customer arrives across the open floor and the goods are between the door and the till. B: the counter where most shops put it, just inside the door with its back to the window, so that the person at it has the street behind them, cannot see who comes in without turning, and stands in the line from the door to the back of the shop; the manuals read it as the mouth of the business blocked and the till exposed, and the retailer reads it as a counter that gets in the way of the door and a back to the pavement. The tradition’s till is the command position with a cash drawer. The arrangement is the one Emmons’s Hong Kong shopkeepers described consulting a geomancer for, and the one Bruun records in the commercial manuals: the till off the door’s line, backed, and seeing the door, with water or a plant between it and the entrance if the school allows. Scale 40 units to the metre.

The window, the street and the neighbours

What a shop faces is read before what it contains. The manuals dislike a shopfront aimed at the corner of the building opposite, at a lamp standard, a pole or the mouth of a lane running at it — the exterior sha the sha catalogue lists — and the remedy is the household’s, on one’s own side of the line: a screen, a planter, a blind on that part of the glass, and not a mirror pointed across the street, which the mirrors guide explains is read on both sides as aimed. A shop on a corner is favoured where the two streets meet gently and disliked where one runs at it, which is the water reading of the water dragon essay applied to traffic, and is also what a surveyor would say about a shopfront on the outside of a bend.

The window itself is the one place the two traditions part. The manuals want it open, clear and looking at something that is not a blank wall; the retail trade fills it. The compromise the guide suggests is the one the old shophouses made: dress the window in its outer third and leave the rest of the glass clear, so that the room behind it is visible from the pavement. A customer who can see into a shop enters it more readily than one who cannot, which Underhill’s people counted, and the manuals would say that a mouth should not be blocked from the inside.

What the shop cannot be promised

The commercial manuals were written for clients who paid to be told their shop would prosper, and they promised it. The site does not, and the reason is the one the evidence essay gives at length: nothing in the research measures takings against a room’s arrangement, and the observational work that exists, Underhill’s included, counts what customers do rather than what a shop earns. What can be said honestly is narrower and still worth having. A customer who can see into a shop comes in more often. A customer who is not brushed stays at a display longer. A shopkeeper who can see the door serves faster and is robbed less. A route that bends is walked further than a route that does not. Each of those is a room arranged, and a shop that has all four has done what a plan can do.

The tests, at the door

Stand outside and look in. From the pavement, can a passer-by see into the room? A window blocked from the inside is a mouth closed from the inside.
Open the door. Does it open into the room, off the middle of the frontage, and onto floor rather than onto a wall, a pillar or the back of a display?
Walk two paces. Is there room to stop? The strip inside the door belongs to the customer, not to the goods.
Turn right. Is there something worth stopping at, three or four paces in and to the right? That is where the drift lands.
Walk the route. Does it bend at least once before the back wall, and can two people pass without touching?
Sit at the counter. Is there a wall behind it, the door in view, and no part of the shop out of sight?
Find the till and the shelf. The till away from the window; the god of wealth, if the household keeps one, on a side wall facing in.
Open the stock door. Is it out of the customer’s line, and does it shut?