Retail and real estate entrepreneurs are turning former big-box stores into places where cottage industries can find customers.

It's a physical world response to what Etsy.com has done for home-based businesses since it launched in 2005 with a focus on handmade and vintage items.

These general merchandise stores sell the same types of products and often use the old retail term "mercantile" or "marketplace," the more current one popularized by Amazon, in their names.

When you slap a name like mercantile on a store, "you can sell virtually anything, and we do," said Clare Freeman, general manager of the Richardson Mercantile, a 55,000-square-foot store that used to be a Whole Foods Market in Richardson, Texas.

It's a growing niche-retail business across the U.S. in suburbs and tourist towns, and it's not an antique mall, if that's what you are thinking.

Instead, think boutique quality folk art and one-of-a-kind items made from wood, metal, glass, ceramics and fabrics. Some are for gifts and home decor. There is vintage apparel and new items from budding retailers displaying their ability to curate merchandise.

Lone Star Mercantile, founded in 2017 by two local couples, uses bar codes and point-of-sale software that allows vendors to be absent while their customers shop and pay at a common checkout at the front of the store.

The stores represent "a chance for artisans to tell a story in a 10-by-10-foot booth, or larger, and for customers to find a one-of-a-kind item," said retail consultant Ric Anderson during an interview at the Lone Star Mercantile in Allen, Texas.

"People have told us they think of the store as if Etsy.com had come to life," said Tina Pemberton of McKinney, who co-owns and operates Lone Star Mercantile with Heather Cox of Melissa, Texas.

Many of their 200 tenants work out of their homes and garages, she said. The way it works, the tenants pay rent and keep their booths stocked. The store checks out their customers and receives a percentage of sales.

Lone Star also hosts events during the year, including after-hours parties for groups.

Many people are turning hobbies into sidelines, said Richardson Mercantile's Freeman. They are retired or creative people who want to fund their hobbies.