I’ve always been vaguely aware that individual branches within retail chains come with numbers. For example, my company’s business partners routinely refer to their branches as numbers, instead of locations: “Call five and ask how many of X they’ve got in stock”. Or: “Get me last month’s stats from three, eight and twelve”.
It wasn’t until a few days ago that I read a petrol station receipt I got (it said Petrol company so-and-so, branch 34) and it dawned on me that these numbers can be collected and entered into OSM using the “ref” tag. I’m not quite sure how exactly this can be useful to anyone but I do know for sure that people who work with data usually like their data numbered. So from now on, I’m shopping at 017, filling up my car at 34 and hunting for more receipts.