Consumerscapes and the resilience assessment of urban retail systems

Abstract

a b s t r a c tDespite the plethora of studies on the behavior and values of consumers, research in the social sciences tends to sideline the role of the cultural dimension of consumption in the assessment of vitality and resilience of urban retail systems. However, given the tendency for retailers to make consumers a key element in their strategies, the cultural approach seems to be a valuable alternative to firm-centric analysis. This paper seeks to face this challenge mobilizing the lens of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT). The aim is to show why consumerscapes matter in the assessment of urban retail resilience. According to Arnould (2005), CCT allows us to capture the motivating social and cultural contexts of retail patronage and purchasing behaviors and the myriad of motivating factors behind the retail purchase decision. People have a variety of projects that they tend to realize through shopping practices and consumption, and retailers offer the range of resources they need to accomplish such projects. Bearing these ideas in mind, we suggest that in order to assess the resilience of urban retailing we need to know the extent to which the different shopping districts provide consumers with the range of resources they want so as to fulfill their projects, and how retailers and public authorities can, in the long term, sustain or improve the levels of consumer satisfaction. These ideas are discussed both in a theoretical and empirical way supported by the data collected from consumer surveys carried out in three neighborhood shopping districts in Greater Lisbon.

Aspirations of Retailers and Visitors Towards the Regeneration of Declining Streets in Cities

“…The study utilised quantitative and qualitative methods; involving primary research in the form of surveys with city centre consumers (referred to as visitors) and interviews with retailers, observational studies and analysis of secondary data, such as GIS data sets, methods in line with similar studies (Cachinho, 2014;Findlay and Sparks, 2012;Ozuduru et al, 2014).…”

Feiras e mercados no Porto: velhos e novos formatos de atividade económica e animação urbana

“…O setor retalhista sempre foi, é e será, pelo menos num futuro próximo, uma atividade urbana por excelência (Cachinho 2014). Nas cidades europeias este setor é complexo, multifacetado e diversificado, o que se deve às diferenças em termos de tipo de prestadores, modelos e organização de negócios, dimensão e formato dos pontos de venda, tipos de produtos, entre outros aspetos (CE 31/01/2013).…”

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“…The applications of the resilience concept in areas other than individual coping processes are illustrated by: role of resiliency in coping with international crime and terrorism as global threats (Bakker et al, 2012); examination of relationships to social ecology (Unger, 2011); inter-relationships of well-being and resilience in the context of human ecology (Armitage et all, 2012); resilience as part of urban planning (Desouza, & Flannery, 2013); resilience within the context of social theory (Cote, & Nightingale, 2012); interpersonal pers pectives with examination of the social correlates of optimism (Smith et all, 2013); community resilience relationship to decision theory in response to catastrophic events (Cox, 2012); role of resilience in economic planning (Rose, 2007;Coaffee, 2008); role of economic resilience (Cachinho, 2014); and a model for organizational resilience (Cobb, & Thampson, 2012). Sage (2014) investigated the relationships between food sovereignty and the fostering of local resilience through local food production.…”