My mother bought all our shoes at an old shoe store in our city. The shoes were first quality (but reasonably-priced) and there had to be a million of them. The clerks were really old and sometimes crabby. There were no displays. You sat down and told the clerk what you wanted, say a pair of black patent leather high heels in a size 8 1/2 narrow. Depending on what was in the store and the mood of the clerk, you were brought one pair (and were told that was all there was) or twenty pairs.
If you came in and saw one of the crabby ones, you stayed hidden until he or she was with another customer and then swooped in and hoped for one of the helpful ones. If this was your lucky day, you left with some real treasures.
I have a feeling the picture above is exactly what the back rooms of our shoe store looked like.