‘Lots of’ is more informal than ‘a lot of’. ‘A lot of’ and ‘lots of’ can both be used with plural countable nouns and with singular uncountable nouns for affirmatives, negatives, and questions. Here, since there were many shops, ‘a lot of’ or ‘lots of’ should be used and since it is plural, ‘there were’ should be used. Years ago, in the town of Istanbul, there were lots of shops and folks came out of the hollows from miles around to shop.
Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?
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