Retail Redlining: Definition, Theory, Typology, and Measurement

Abstract

Retail redlining is a spatially discriminatory practice among retailers, of not serving certain areas, based on their ethnicminority composition, rather than on economic criteria, such as the potential profitability of operating in those areas. Consequently, consumers in these areas often find themselves "vulnerable" because no other retailers will serve them, or they are exploited by other, often smaller, retailers who charge them higher prices and/or offer them inferior goods. What makes retail redlining worthy of scrutiny is that whereas redlining is illegal in the financial industry, retail redlining is still legal in the retailing industry. There are, however, lawsuits and lobbying efforts under way that seek to make this practice illegal. In this article, the authors define retail redlining, identify eight different commonly seen variations of it, look at both sides of the argument on this practice, and finally suggest a methodology for empirically verifying this practice.

Children as vulnerable consumers: a first conceptualisation

“…Those with less formal education are viewed as more vulnerable than the highly schooled and trained (Mitra, Hastak, Ford and Ringold, 1999;Ringold, 2005;Smith & Cooper-Martin, 1997). In a US context, African American and Hispanic consumers are seen as more disadvantaged (D'Rozario & Williams, 2005;Marlowe & Atilies, 2005;Penaloza, 1995) as are those with poor native language skills (Barnhill 1972;Marlowe and Atilies, 2005). And, interestingly for our paper, most age-related research on disadvantaged consumers has concentrated on the particular vulnerability of the elderly (Andreasen, 1975(Andreasen, , 1976Barnhill, 1972;Morgan & Riordan, 1983).…”

Retail Redlining in New York City: Racialized Access to Day-to-Day Retail Resources

“…But if retailers systematically avoid Black neighborhoods, and mark them as less desirable or tenable as consumer markets, these areas are effectively being redlined for retail. Retail redlining 12 refers to spatial discrimination whereby retailers, particularly chain stores, fail to serve neighborhoods or target them for unfavorable treatment based on the racial composition of the customers and/or the store operators. From a health perspective, retail redlining contributes to racialized risk environments.…”

“…D'Rozario and Williams 12 argue: "chain stores willingly cede profitable, innercity locations to independents while they saturate suburban, less-profitable locations with their stores. This cannot be explained by any economic theory that we are aware of" (p. 177).…”

Symbolism in Marketing Systems

“…For instance, the aggregation dimension represents marketing systems that range from highly aggregated (e.g., global systems and trade blocks) to moderately aggregated (e.g., firms and households) to disaggregated (e.g., exchange; Layton, 2007). The structural approach examines yet another dimension that comprises the interrelation of structural parts of marketing systems: trade flows (Layton 1981;Tuninga 1991), transvections (Alderson 1965), marketing channels (Olsen and Granzin 1990;Mittelstaedt and Stassen 1994), and spatial systems (D'Rozario and Williams 2005;Ingene 1983;Markin and Duncan 1981). The temporal dimension of marketing systems is captured by historical research (see Jones and Shaw 2006) and future sustainability concerns (Dolan 2002;Kilbourne, McDonagh, and Prothero 1997;van Dam and Apeldoorn 1996).…”