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Very little is known about identity mechanisms underlying shopping with friends during adolescence. A quantitative study (Ntotal n= 614) shows that the frequency of shopping with friends relies on a balance between desires for individuation (i.e. autonomy from mother) and social approbation (i.e. susceptibility to normative and informative influence from friends). Our results show that gender moderates these mechanisms: the autonomy from mother is a key variable of shopping with peers for adolescent boys, whereas the susceptibility to peers’ normative and informative influence is a key variable for adolescent girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese department stores became major art entrepreneurs in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Since the Mitsukoshi department store launched its art section in 1907 to display and sell the art of prominent contemporary artists, other Japanese department stores followed suit. The primary customer of the department store art sections was the rising urban middle class, who needed works of art with which to decorate tokonoma (decorative alcoves) of their new houses. By occupying a house with tokonoma, which had previously been built only in elite domestic architecture, and participating in the cultural practices associated with that space, the new middle class attempted to legitimize their cultural taste, which acted not only as a conspicuous marker of social status but also as an active determinant of it in the fluid conditions of modern Japan. This article explores how department stores allowed the new middle-class customers, who lacked both the proper financial means and the cultural competence to indulge their craving for ‘high culture’, to become members of the cultural elite in exchange for shopping at their art sections. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw on data from 16 interviews (two each with eight women) to explore some of the ways in which everyday shopping may change as women become mothers. The meanings, practices and implications of the transition to motherhood have long been a topic for sociological inquiry. Recently, interest has turned to the opportunities offered by this transition for the adoption of more sustainable lifestyles. Becoming a mother is likely to lead to changes in a variety of aspects of everyday life such as travel, leisure, cooking and purchase of consumer goods, all of which have environmental implications. The environmental impacts associated with such changes are complex, and positive moves toward more sustainable activities in one sphere may be offset by less environmentally positive changes elsewhere. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on data from 16 interviews (two each with eight women) to explore some of the ways in which everyday shopping may change as women become mothers. Findings – This paper focuses on the ways in which modes and meanings of everyday shopping may shift through the transition to mother, and on indicating any potential sustainability implications. The paper explores the adoption of more structured shopping and of shifting the mode of grocery shopping online or offline. The paper draws attention to the way in which practices are embedded and interrelated and argue that more consideration needs to be given to the influence of all household members. Originality/value – The question here is not whether women purchase different products or consume more once they have a child, but rather how does the everyday activity of shopping for groceries and the meanings it has change with new motherhood and what sustainability implications might this have? In this context, this paper provides a novel addition to research on new mothers and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the cultural, social, and economic contributions of multi-ethnic neighborhood businesses to the transformation of German cityscapes. The diversity on N-Street in Stuttgart has been at the forefront of urban transformations and cultural production. I show that neighborhood stores and shopping streets are sites of urban experiments and cultural beginnings which produce new authenticities in the face of rapid urban homogenization. Combining theoretical debates about urban 'authenticities,' the creative potential of immigrant neighborhoods, and ethnic/cross-cultural economies, I analyze transformations of N-Street and the surrounding neighborhood. I argue that neighborhood shopping streets are relevant nodes and agents in urban transformations and the production of urban futures. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, I introduce N-Street's history, its current configuration of genuinely local urban cultures and economies, and its cultural complexity and cultural and economic innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the evolution of modern sporting goods retailing through the development of Gamage's (A.W. Gamage Holborn Ltd.) before the First World War. The essay examines how Gamage's exploited new models of fashionable consumerism to create a unique retail environment that directly targeted young male consumers enjoying modern forms of sporting and recreational activities. By the end of the nineteenth century, the so-called ‘People's Popular Emporium’ purported to be the ‘world's largest sport and athletic outfitter’. The essay considers Gamage's rise to prominence in a crucial period in the development of commodity culture. It examines the changing cultural form of shops and shopping in relation to the desires of a burgeoning mass market that sought to express and visibly display its economic, sporting, and social status. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Christchurch, the second largest city in New Zealand with a pre-earthquake population of 376,700, was rattled by two major earthquakes in a span of 6 months from September 2010. With significant loss of life, collapsed buildings and damaged infrastructure, consumers were confronted with the notion that retail spaces, in the event of an earthquake, had the potential to be unsafe and a source of potential personal harm. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study that explored how consumers modified their retail shopping behaviour following a sequence of earthquake events over the 2010/2011 timeframe in Christchurch, New Zealand. Participants discussed a range of issues, including their experiences with the earthquakes, and the changes they had to make to their shopping activities in order to adapt to their new circumstances. The findings of this study have implications for any setting where shoppers are affected by unexpected events beyond their control and where an impression of personal danger suddenly becomes associated with their day-to-day shopping activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on how marketers are using a holistic path for reaching customers and getting customers to purchase the products, instead of focusing only on touch points. It mentions that California based-grocery chain Trader Joe's Co. Inc. provides a unique experience to shoppers by offering exotic products at low costs in an offbeat environment. It mentions that companies are increasingly focusing on customer experience by reorienting their business with help from customer insights. According to a research conducted by the company McKinsey, companies that react to the movements of the journeys of their customers benefit from increased revenue, enhanced customer satisfaction and greater employee satisfaction.

The article discusses the concept of business models in the information technology industry. Specifically, the article deals with social shopping communities - online platforms that combine social networking and online shopping. An analysis of the online social shopping community operators Shopstyle, Stylight, Stylehive, and Polyvore is provided.

This paper explores the tensions between civility and sectarianism in contemporary Belfast. Drawing on interviews with mothers engaged in raising young children in the largely working-class and divided inner city, the paper offers a situated account of the dynamics of social reproduction and change. This is pursued through an analysis of the interplay between expectations of civility and sectarianism in three situations: walking, shopping and playing. The tensions and dilemmas of maternal action as the divided inner city is navigated indicate the gendered character of civility, an important emerging norm facilitating social change in the post-conflict era. The situation of motherhood itself, both at the centre of ethno-national reproduction and at the interface of public and private life, is not insignificant in routinely drawing mothers into the everyday dynamics of post-conflict continuity and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the representation of shopping in selected fictional and autobiographical works by French-Canadian author Gabrielle Roy ( Bonheur d'occasion, Rue Deschambault and La Détresse et l'enchantement) It argues that, in the case of Roy, the activity of shopping can be seen to constitute not only a playful and pleasurable pursuit for women, but also one that has the potential to be empowering. Shopping in Royan works offers female characters the opportunity to dream, to create, to escape the everyday, to explore and, perhaps most importantly, it facilitates female bonding, particularly between mother and daughter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concepts of free riding and conflict in hybrid shopping environments as of March 2013, focusing on analyses of the impacts of the concepts on retailers, regulators, and manufacturers in America. It states that shoppers commonly use multiple distribution channels, including brick-and-mortar retailers and Internet shopping options. Other topics include price matching, business-to-business (B2B markets, and retail companies such as Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses various reports within the issue on topics including changes in consumer shopping, the concept of retail free riding, and Internet commerce.

Economie and social changes since the year 1990 in the Czech Republic have been reflected in the shopping habits of the population. Not only is the 'standard' form of everyday shopping for basic provisions at corner shops now typical, but so is daily visits to specialised retail chain stores or shopping centres. Such daily shopping trips are often combined with ommuting to work and school or travelling for other services and have become an important factor in the daily lives of residents. This phenomenon has led to the formation of stronger links between inhabitants within a daily urban System. The primary intensity is observed not in the core-periphery link but rather between the periphery of the agglomeration and suburban zones where most of the big shopping mails and hypermarkets are located. Frequently this is not a daily but rather an irregular or weekend activity. These places are thus becoming special centres (secondary cores) of retail business, services, and leisure time activities competing with the city centre itself. This article presents an analysis of the influence of spatial, sociology-demographic and psychographic factors on the intensity and variability of the commute for foodstuffs and other shopping in shopping centres. The retail gravity model, shopping habits and shopping behaviour are analysed on the basis of field surveys of the inhabitants from communities located in the hinterlands of Brno. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indian retail market is one of the most promising in the world and it is growing. So is the Indian consumer, across all socioeconomic strata, regions, towns and classes. Rising incomes, multiple income households, exposure to international lifestyles and media, easier financial credit and an upbeat economy are enhancing aspirations and consumption patterns. The retailing industry in India, specifically organized retail, seems poised for a significant growth in the coming years owning to the presence of a vast market, growing consumer awareness about products and services, higher disposable income of the consumers and the desire to try out new products. Supermarkets will be one of the major centers for shopping. Thus to tap the opportunities in this sector, it is important to understand what factors that influence consumers and how is the current shopping behaviour pattern in India. Study finds out that, physical factors (discounts, quality, local brands, display and visual appeal) (2) social factors include (salesmen behaviour and choice of children) (3) temporal factors (open space) should be considered by the super marketers while designing marketing strategy for Indian consumers as these factors are having influence upon the number of visits and amount spent in the supermarket. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the late Soviet period, the gender contract established after the revolution had created a situation in which the simple act of shopping for basic, everyday goods carried different meanings for men and women, promoting male passivity and female responsibility within the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographic variation in consumer use of Internet retailers is partly explained by variation in offline shopping costs. Explanations for geographic variation in the efficacy of different customer acquisition methods including traditional methods of offline word-of-mouth (WOM) and magazine advertising and information systems (IS)-enabled methods of online WOM and online search remain unexplored. We estimate a multivariate negative binomial distribution (NBD) model on zip code-level customer counts from a leading Internet retailer and provide new insights into factors explaining geographic variation in the success of these methods. First, we show that target customer density explains geographic variation over and above the impact due to the number of potential customers. Moreover, the effect of density is greatest for offline and online WOM acquisitions; this suggests that density contributes to contagion, connectivity, and a hypothesized "social multiplier." Second, when senders and recipients of WOM share consumption benefits, WOM is more powerful and compelling. We find that location-based convenience benefits have stronger effects on location-dependent offline WOM acquisitions than on location-independent online WOM acquisitions. Third, acquisition channels contribute differently to the total customer pool-offline WOM acquisitions are clustered, whereas magazine acquisitions are dispersed. Finally, separate click-to-conversion data from Coremetrics.com indicates that using the model-based predictions to target specific markets delivers a twofold improvement in actual click-to-order rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates change and continuity in anxieties about shopping during the first half of the twentieth century in Egypt to argue that department stores and their salesclerks became critical sites for enacting and challenging new notions of sexuality and citizenship. Retail innovations, such as commission pay, display, free entry, and large commercial staffs, became understood as sexual and moral problems because department stores blurred the boundaries between classes and were public spaces where unrelated men and women could mix. These concerns about sexuality in the 1920s were recycled and amplified in the late 1940s and early 1950s when salesclerks again came under scrutiny during debates over citizenship and ethnicity. I argue that the particular way this latter debate was barnacled by the concerns of the 1920s helped to delineate the broader society's reaction to the challenges of defining Egyptian nationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the influence of geodemographic settings of commercial centers, customer attractions in shopping malls, and route to shopping of urban shoppers. The present research analyzes retailing patterns in urban areas in reference to customer orientation strategies, product search behavior, and enhancing value for customers. Interrelationship among urban retailing, marketplace ambiance, conventional shopping wisdom of customers, long-term customer services, and technology-led selling processes are also addressed in the study based on an empirical survey. Broadly, this study makes contributions to the existing research in urban retailing about shopping attractions, routes to shopping, and establishing customer-centric strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo considera las tendencias y las motivaciones diferentes de comprar para las mujeres y para los hombres. El autor cita varios estudios sobre este tema que concluyen que las mujeres compran porque les gusta el proceso de ir a comprar y los hombres compran para obtener lo que necesitan. Se analiza la conexión entre este comportamiento y la evolución de la especie humano relacionada con las sociedades de caza y recolección.

Purpose - This paper aims to improve understanding of the reasons why people trust the information about product recommendations on social shopping networks of websites, a new e-commerce method which combines social networking and shopping, and to investigate the impact of the trust on the consumers' intention to purchase products from the online shop of a website. Design/methodology/approach - An online survey instrument was developed to gather data, and 1,219 questionnaires were used to test the relationships in the proposed model. Findings - The results indicated that perceived ability, perceived benevolence/integrity, perceived critical mass, and trust in a website were four important antecedents of trust in product recommendation in a social networking site. In addition trust in product recommendations can influence the consumers' intention to purchase from the website through increasing their intention to purchase the products. Research limitations/implications - The research model demonstrated the importance of trust in product recommendations to online consumers' transaction intention. Practical implications - The results of the study showed that trust in product recommendations will influence consumers' purchase intentions. Therefore a social shopping website or the websites transforming into social shopping websites should put more emphasis on ways to establish the virtual communities or social networks which can provide the information about product recommendations that consumers trust. Originality/value - The study provides a comprehensive framework of the antecedents and effects of consumers' trust in recommendations in the context of social shopping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data collected from the European Social Survey (made available by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services), we compare the political acts of buycotting, boycotting, and direct monetary donation and examine the different individual-level attributes that determine people to engage in these political acts. Specifically, we examine the individual attributes that best indicate an individual's propensity to engage in these activities. Our main findings are that women and young people participate in political consumerism more than men and older people. We also find that donors differ substantially from buycotters and boycotters, which leads us to conclude that donating is a different, more traditional type of participation than is political consumerism. This sets the stage for studying nontraditional realms of political expression and in particular indicates a need for future studies on political actors most likely to engage in political consumerism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to discuss the reasons behind the attractiveness of shopping malls for young consumers in Turkey and then to determine the attractiveness factors of malls for this segment from the consumer's perspective. Design/methodology/approach - The study was carried out through a survey of 621 young consumers (aged between 12-24) in three out-of-town selected shopping malls in Bursa, Turkey. For a general evaluation of the data, factor analysis is applied. It is considered as a valuable tool to reduce dimension and group different characteristics of young consumer's mall usage. Findings - The study reveals five mall attractiveness factors from the young Turkish consumer's perspective: retail environment, comfort conditions, socializing in a secure environment, accessibility, leisure. The importance of all these factors for this segment are evaluated with a comparative analysis with the findings of many other studies, analyzing the similar issues in relation to different cultures. Research limitations/implications - The sampling frame for this research was limited to young consumers in Bursa, Turkey. Study findings, although interesting, are clearly not generalizable to all populations of young consumers or even all Turkish young consumers. Practical implications - Identifying mall attractiveness factors for young consumers gives a better understanding about patronage motives than when it is applied to the market as a whole. Originality/value - This is one of the first studies to provide an insight of mall attractiveness factors as identified by young Turkish consumers from the viewpoint of an urban studies researcher, rather than marketing researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do people purchase proenvironmental "green" products? We argue that buying such products can be construed as altruistic, since green products often cost more and are of lower quality than their conventional counterparts, but green goods benefit the environment for everyone. Because biologists have observed that altruism might function as a "costly signal" associated with status, we examined in 3 experiments how status motives influenced desire for green products. Activating status motives led people to choose green products over more luxurious nongreen products. Supporting the notion that altruism signals one's willingness and ability to incur costs for others' benefit, status motives increased desire for green products when shopping in public (but not private) and when green products cost more (but not less) than nongreen products. Findings suggest that status competition can be used to promote proenvironmental behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the significant differences in shopping for luxury goods among Western, Asian, and Hispanic tourists and, in particular, the perceived importance of different types and characteristics of the luxury consumer and travel goods tourists buy on vacation. The results show that Western, Asian, and Hispanic tourists-shoppers significantly differ in the perceived importance of luxury consumer and travel goods and their characteristics. Western and Asian tourists attach more importance to buying “gifts for others” than Hispanic tourists. Asian tourists attach more importance to buying “golf equipment,” “health spa/wellness treatment,” “luxury cruises,”and “luxury yachts/rentals” than Hispanic tourists. Western tourists attach more importance to “fine dining” than Hispanic tourists. Implications of the study results and recommendations for future studies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assesses the level of consumers' felt involvement in four distinct product categories of organic food (coffee, bread, fruit, and flour), and examines the role of felt involvement in the broader context of organic food shopping behavior. It is shown that the reason why consumers do not buy organic food regularly despite their positive attitudes is that such ideologically formed attitudes are not present in habitual, low-involvement shopping activities with limited problem-solving needs as in food shopping from grocery stores. The statistical analysis of an empirical sample of 200 consumers gives substantial support to the hypothesized new organic food buying behavior model. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with social shopping web sites and questions if they can replace the actual physical shopping experience. It cites various shopping sites, such as Kaboodle, Wists, and ThisNext, which cater primarily to women. It suggests that what makes these online shopping sites different from others is that they also provide a venue for interacting with other members, sharing gossip and information.

The growth in farmers' markets in the US has raised questions about whether they are a niche market or appeal to a broader population. Using a simple, random sample of US food shoppers, this study uses a test of means to examine whether there are differences in characteristics between those who shop at farmers' markets and those who do not. A key finding was that there was no significant difference in the level of food expenditures between shoppers and non-shoppers. In addition, a probit model was used to examine the marginal effects of attitudinal, behavioural and demographic variables on the probability of shopping at a farmers' market. The probability was significantly increased by the following: enjoyment and frequency of cooking, being female and the presence of another adult in the household. Income did not significantly influence the probability of shopping at a farmers' market. However, the probability of shopping at a farmers' market was significantly reduced if respondents perceived that cost was the most important characteristic of food. These characteristics imply limited appeal of farmers' markets currently to convenience-oriented, single-person, and single-parent households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare the ability of three preference elicitation methods (hypothetical choices, nonhypothetical choices, and nonhypothetical rankings) and three discrete-choice econometric models (the multinomial logit [MNL], the independent availability logit [IAL], and the random parameter logit [RPL]) to predict actual retail shopping behavior in three different product categories (ground beef, wheat flour, and dishwashing liquid). Overall, we find a high level of external validity. Our specific results suggest that the nonhypothetical elicitation approaches, especially the nonhypothetical ranking method, outperformed the hypothetical choice experiment in predicting retail sales. We also find that the RPL can have superior predictive performance, but that the MNL predicts equally well in some circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Shopping is one of the most important activities for tourists. The purpose of this study is to describe and predict tourist shopping route choice behavior in a downtown historic center. Reported routes of tourists in the downtown shopping area of Maastricht, located in the Southern part of the Netherlands, are used. A model of tourist shopping behavior is estimated to investigate differences in route choice behavior of various types of tourist shoppers. The results indicate that shopping supply and accessibility, some physical characteristics, and the history of the route followed are important factors influencing route choice behavior. Furthermore, it can be concluded that shopping motivations, familiarity with the area and planning of the route affect tourist route choice behavior. The model allows investigating the effects of environmental characteristics on route choice behavior and assessing various future planning scenarios, such as changes in physical aspects of links in the downtown area, or changes in supply of shops. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent studies have examined what factors affect the adoption of e-shopping (electronic shopping), why people adopt e-shopping, and what changes in activity - travel patterns will occur as a response to e-shopping. Very few studies to date, however, have investigated the impact of geographic context on people's e-shopping behavior. This study reexamines the explanatory factors that are related to people's e-shopping patterns through a study of the Columbus Metropolitan Area, OH. It focuses on the effect of accessibility to local shops and the residential context on the adoption of e-shopping and the frequency of buying online. Using an activity-Internet diary dataset, the results suggest that people with lower levels of accessibility to local shopping opportunities are more likely to engage in e-shopping, since the Internet enhances the efficiency of shopping by providing more product information and by eliminating the need of travel in the physical world. Further, people who live in areas with a white majority are more likely to adopt e-shopping. The magnitude of the impact of these context factors on e-shopping, however, is quite small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malls have become social magnets for people of all social strata, young included, and, in this guise, they apparently emulate churches in their function of ritually congregating people at weekends or on Sundays. In the following we shall endeavour to read the city malls (in Transylvania) from a Cultural Studies perspective with the goal of showing that they function as cultural loci for youth congregation, as well as powerful agencies of identity construction. We aim to prove that through their ritual presence in malls and their consumption and reassignment of meaning to mall space (teens make special use of mall space quite often contrary to, or at least different from, the original intentions) adolescents perform and display self-identities. The underlying assumption is that consumption is symbolic and that teens in malls consume signs and meanings rather than just commodities. During the process, there occurs a construction of sorts, that of self- or group identities, for this is an era where young people increasingly define themselves through what they consume, be it commodities or signs. Our concern is with how malls are appropriated by teenagers, and how through the ritualistic pursuit of leisure and pleasure therein Romanian teens consecrate the function of malls of symbolising a specific world view, a system of beliefs, and a set of attitudes, very much like religion does. Thus, while primarily secular temples (now a commonplace syntagm for malls), malls may be said to epitomize the sacred symbols of young people today1 although, at face value, they seem to tend to mundane rather than spiritual needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical economic theory following Bentham and Mill assumes decision makers are completely informed, highly sensitive to differences between alternatives, and above all rational in being able to rank order the possible alternatives and choose among them on some measure of welfare (utility maximization). In recent years, this view has been successfully challenged by empirical studies of decision making, and many alternative decision rules have emerged (such as lexicographic, elimination by aspects, counting, conjunctive, heuristic additive difference, affective, take the best, and so on). Despite thirty years' work on boundedly rational and cognitive approaches, the classical view is still widely accepted in urban travel demand modeling. This paper develops a newer conceptual framework for shopping travel situtations-namely, choice of shopping place on different kinds of tour, for different orders of goods, and for regional malls and neighborhood centers. Hypotheses concerning the use of different kinds of decision rule are generated for the different situations or contexts. A statistical design is provided for tests of these hypotheses using fieldwork, verbal protocol analysis, and low-level 1-tests. Fifty-five MIT students are interviewed, and their protocols for the shopping situations recorded and analyzed. The findings are that decision rules are multiple and vary with context. Although the specific hypotheses of the paper are not strongly supported, there is overwhelming evidence of the widespread use of simple heuristics. Implications of the findings are drawn for future work in the travel demand field and the preference and choice field. In addition, the contribution of this paper to behavioral decision making is noted, through the extension of work on choice heuristics to a different field (travel demand) and the use of a fieldwork qualitative methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we address the related issues of retail innovation, changing shopping practices, and shopping geographies. We do so in relation to the spread of self-service grocery stores, and particularly the supermarket, in the postwar retail environment of Britain (1950-70), arguing that this juncture provides a propitious opportunity to study the relationship between changing practices of retailing and consumption. We highlight shoppers' selective adoption of new self-service formats in relation to certain product categories and argue that this can be explained in part by reference to the socially embedded nature of women food shoppers' behaviours and in particular the influence of contemporary notions of the 'good housewife'. We support our argument by reference to a wide range of contemporary documentary material relating to postwar shopping including market research reports, the publications of local consumer groups, and selected retailer and government archive sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a general belief that products bought at store checkouts are selected on hasty inclinations. This study indicates that checkout purchases are commonly influenced by store-visit frequencies. Not all checkout purchases can casually be referred to as impulsive because what items shoppers select at checkouts indicate conscious concern with making efficient use of their shopping time.Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing (2008) 16, 312–321; doi:10.1057/jt.2008.23; published online 3 November 2008 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As basic units of communication recognized by speakers themselves, communicative events have always been assumed to have clearly definable boundaries and characterizable joint activity for content. This, however, is not always the case. In this article, I argue for a communicative event I term 'prospecting an encounter' which typically occurs between shoppers and salespersons in Chinese local markets. 'Prospecting' opens in a deliberately ambiguous way and ends when it either develops into a fully ratified encounter or dissolves into mere unfocused interaction or even cessation of co-presence. The joint activity that occurs within its boundaries has an equivocal status as engagement. Close analysis of interactional data reveals how prospecting' events are jointly accomplished by speakers through the strategic withholding of glances and the extensive use of silence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative in which the author remembers how she and a close friend bonded over shopping and explores her experiences taking that friend's disabled daughter to Loehmann's department store.

This paper explores the consumer value of publicly associating oneself with a brand image. The economic value of such association to the consumer of a brand is coming from its affect on the information exchange between consumers engaged in a search for partnerships with each other. It turns out that the brand use can be valuable to consumers for communication even when they do not have the proper incentives to make simple conversations valuable or informative. In particular, when the correlation of the interests of agents in a partnership is low, conversations are not very informative, while brand use remains informative and valuable. Furthermore, the more widespread the brand use is, the less truthful (and informative) one can expect conversations to be. In addition, the consumer value of a brand image is shown to have an inverse-U shape in the difficulty of searching, as consumers look for conformity when a search is difficult, and conversations become more and more truthful when a search becomes very easy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Veteran reporter Davis recalls how a minor case of shoplifting in London’s Oxford Street, when a woman left a store without paying for five gaily-coloured hats, turned into a major story that tested Fleet Street’s finest. The accused was identified as Nina Ponomareva, aged 27, a teacher and mother of a two-year-old boy named Sasha – a white beret listed in the charge was meant for him. “So far, so routine… But, unfortunately for all, Nina was also one of the Soviet Union’s most famous women, a world-class athlete who at the 1952 summer Olympics in Helsinki had taken gold for discus throwing. Fondly nicknamed Miss Muscles, she was in London with almost 100 other Russian athletes to compete against the British in a two-day meeting at the White City, due to begin the next evening.” Summoned to appear before magistrates and headlined ‘Nina of the Five Hats’, the discus genius’s non-appearance in court set off a chain of events that Involved the Russian charg d’affaires, Lord Reading, minister of state at the Foreign Office, and the august British ambassador in Moscow, Sir William Hayter (Winchester and New College, Oxford), who “was infuriated to be summoned to the Kremlin to be harangued over this piddling business.” Davis reveals the whole hilarious story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses a case study approach, informed by oral testimony, to explore the relationship between fashion, gay masculinity and shopping, through the experiences of three men during the 1950s to the early 1970s. Focusing on clothing bought by the interviewees from the newly established boutiques aimed at both straight and gay male consumers, such as Vince Man's Shop, John Stephens' 'His Clothes' and John Michael, this research highlights the fact that dress and clothing is part of a series of gay sensibilities that cannot be isolated from their wider cultural, historical and social context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under-appreciation of mature consumers as a numerous and comparatively wealthy market segment has resulted in not only lost revenues for business, but also lost consumption and service opportunities for the elderly. In response to expressed needs for more research into actual and desired consumption by older consumers, this study examined the apparel and shopping preferences of mature women in America. Independent living residents were surveyed concerning fashion consciousness, fashion information sources and shopping behaviours. Young and mature consumers’ reactions to female apparel ensembles were compared. Mature subjects purchased apparel for pleasure or need, but less for conformity. Decisions were influenced more by fit and comfort than by fashion, despite suggestions that dressing stylishly was important. New fashions were encountered via catalogue illustrations, social gatherings and window displays. Subjects high in fashion consciousness had greater financial and social involvement with fashion, greater chronological-to-cognitive age differences and larger clothing budgets. Young and mature consumers’ responses to apparel illustrations differed significantly. As the mature market expands, attention to age-divergent definitions of fashion (such as those based upon admiration of comfort) will determine the success of apparel businesses. Assessment of cognitive age will facilitate identification of those mature consumers most predisposed toward fashion consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective website design plays a critical role in attracting and maintaining customers' interest. Despite the importance of websites as the major and, at times, sole channel of communication in e-business, little theoretical knowledge is available about how websites may influence online shoppers' attitudes and behavior. In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework for measuring the impact of Web-design elements on the beliefs and behavior of Web customers. In developing the theoretical model (called the belief reinforcement model, or BRM), we synthesize the theory of planned behavior with theories in social psychology, consumer behavior, and management to categorize Web-design elements and conceptualize the salient aspects of Web shoppers' behavior. The empirical examination of BRM indicates that various categories of Web-design elements reinforce Web customers' beliefs, which in turn positively impact attitudinal constructs that lead to changes in their purchase intentions. BRM and its results provide an initial guideline for a rigorous approach to designing websites for e-business and testing their effectiveness before their full deployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the result of the report `The Millennium Shopper,' which evaluated the consumers behavior in Great Britain and in the United States. How consumers use the Internet; Challenges faced by marketers; Barriers to Internet shopping.

Examines the impact of changing social pressures on going shopping among married households. Evaluation of women's shopping behavior; Variables in research framework; Association of sex and shopping responsibility; Examination of satisfaction derived from shopping; Explanation of behavioral learning theory.

Focuses on a study which examined the factors affecting urban-out-of-home shopping activities in the United States. Discussion on the importance of shopping; Key variable of household socioeconomic characteristics; Information on the children belief model.