This article reconstructs and analyses the first modernization processes of formal retail trade in Chile (1890-1930), delving into the relations of this sector with the economic development model of the period, wholesale trade, and the prototypical forms of sales work that this scale of trade developed. Thus, based on a broad analysis of sources and bibliography, approached from an interdisciplinary perspective, it discusses the way in which these processes implied the introduction of new "modern and scientific models" of organizing commercial activity. These new models, which included strategies of bureaucratization, rationalization, and standardization, were installed as central parameters, thus contributing to understanding the history of labour in the Chilean commerce sector and situating the current forms of retail trade in the country as part of a long-lasting process.