Consumer Behaviour and the Life Course: Shopper Reactions to Self-Service Grocery Shops and Supermarkets in England c. 1947–75

Abstract

1Consumer behaviour and the life-course: shopper reactions to self service grocery shops and supermarkets in England c. Abstract. The paper examines the development of self-service grocery shopping from a consumer perspective. Using qualitative data gathered through a nationwide biographical survey and oral histories, it is possible to go beyond contemporary market surveys which give insufficient attention to shopping as a socially and culturally embedded practice. The paper uses the conceptual framework of the life-course, to demonstrate how grocery shopping is a complex activity, in which the retail encounter is shaped by the specific interconnection of different retail formats and their geographies, alongside consumer characteristics and their situational influences. Consumer reactions to retail modernization must be understood in relation to the development of consumer practices at points of transition and stability within the life-course. These practices are accessed by examining retrospective consumer narratives about food shopping.2

Internet or store? An ethnographic study of consumers' internet and store-based grocery shopping practices

“…a store or via the internet) through practice reveals how shoppers make sense of different retail spaces and is also important to us. An understanding of the relationality, and inherent tensions, between internet shopping (both for grocery related items as well as other non-food products) and shopping by using stores is therefore necessary: all contextualized by the individual consumer's life-course (see Everts and Jackson, 2009;Bailey et al, 2010;Miller, 2012).…”

The Evolution of Retailing

“…Reynolds et al (2007) pay heed to the role of consumers in driving change in retail formats, but fleetingly. More recent work by Bailey et al (2010) examines consumer reactions to self-service supermarket formats in England (c. 1947-75) utlising a 'life course' perspective. Such research underscores the importance of recognising that consumers constitute a fundamental half of the exchange relationship and further research from a consumer perspective is warranted to address what is a significant structural gap in our understanding of retailing evolution (Cohen 1990).…”

The Performativity of Food Packaging: Market Devices, Waste Crisis and Recycling

“…A number of studies document the rapid and unprecedented changes in food systems in capitalist economies that began after the Second World War. These included, amongst others, changes in agriculture, the shift to regional and global supply chains, the rise of supermarkets, the blurring of seasons, and the development of fast foods (Shiva, 2000; Bailey et al , 2010; Cook and Chaddad, 2000). In the same period, production of plastics, glass and cardboard grew spectacularly (Borgstrom, 1967; Imhoff, 2005).…”