Spaces of Shopping

Spaces of shopping are locales where consumers browse for, and purchase, goods and services. They have also been called servicescapes, or places where people, processes that shape the selection and acquisition of products, and physical attributes of the location interact. A more colloquial term is retail venue. Throughout history, locales where people acquire items to satisfy their needs and wants have become increasingly elaborate, and different types of retail venues have waxed and waned. Popular shopping spaces around the world in the early twenty-first century include shopping malls, boutiques, open-air markets (e.g., farmers' markets), themed venues, kiosks, mom-and-pop shops (e.g., family-owned businesses), franchised stores, supermarkets, discount stores, regional shopping centers (including factory outlets), and destination retailers. Of the spaces that have declined in popularity, department stores are noteworthy because they dominated the retail landscape in consumption-oriented countries throughout most of the twentieth century. Furthermore, according to Sharon Zukin, they legitimized consumer desire for goods and services by embedding service with the sale and by incorporating a high level of aesthetics into the shopping experience.

The home also has been an important shopping space throughout the history of consumer culture. One major home shopping medium, the mail-order catalog, was begun in the United States by Aaron Montgomery Ward in 1872. Although catalogs' competition includes brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce, consumers continue to find catalogs desirable. As Robin Cherry notes, “people still like to sit on their sofa and shop” (2008, 13). However, they have evolved from more general merchandise forms (such as the Sears catalog) to more niche-oriented publications. In addition, consumers can shop from their television sets via direct-sell commercials and program-length offerings known as infomercials, as well as from home-shopping networks. The three largest television-shopping corporations—QVC (the Quality, Value, Convenience Network), the Home Shopping Network, and Value Vision (VV)—account for billions of dollars in sales annually around the world.

Shopping also takes place in the home through home-shopping parties, where an organizer sponsors an event to demonstrate goods offered by a particular manufacturer (e.g., Tupperware, the Pampered Chef). Consistent with the traditional delineation of shopping and ritual creation as “women's work,” most who attend these parties are women. Furthermore, [Page 1356]according to Brenda Gainer and Eileen Fischer (1991), the norms of social obligation and reciprocity that these parties engender within social groups help these parties remain highly successful means of selling goods, even as some consumers resent being invited and being expected to buy. Moreover, Internet home shopping has revolutionized the retail landscape; indeed, it is now often the case that Internet sales outpace those at traditional brick-and-mortar outlets. For example, although most retailers suffered sharp declines during the 2008 Christmas shopping season, http://Amazon.com actually reported its busiest Christmas season ever (Clark 2008). All of these forms of shopping demonstrate the relevance of the home as a key retail site, even as changes in the workforce and increased concerns over crime have diminished other home-shopping activities (e.g., door-to-door sales).