They had a player 'shop' area in 1.X. You had to go from retainer to retainer just to find items. We have the Market Board now. Player shops would be moot, due to the MB and the fact you can place retainers on your estate in which people can buy items from directly. So I'm not for that.

Now if they want to make them a place where players can get into, I'm sure there are RPers out there that would like to have their character run a 'shop' for RP purposes.