She said imaginative ways of looking at siting post offices have seen businesses opening in a pub in Tintern, a hat shop in north Wales and in a Chinese takeaway in England.

BBC: Villagers might not have to travel out of the community

But growth is happening also because of changing buyer demographics and increased awareness about skin cancer, says Linda Pagan, who has owned The Hat Shop NYC in SoHo for 25 years.

FORBES: Haute Heads

He set up pyramids of plates to crash when people passed them, and rigged a mirror in a hat shop so that, when each matron posed simperingly before it, the glass cracked from side to side.

ECONOMIST: Jonathan Routh

His father and mother were Polish-Jewish immigrants, keeping a hat-and-drapery shop in Montparnasse, in Paris.

ECONOMIST: Cardinal Lustiger

There may be a life-size polar bear in a cowboy hat and hula skirt standing in front of a tourist shop that makes for memorable souvenir photos, and one could argue that any item is for sale if you make the right offer, but if it isn't specifically there to be sold, it doesn't count.

CNN: Deliciously kitschy and 'Crap Souvenirs'