Consumer Society and Choice Essay Example

society the options available of where, when and how we shop are, on the face of it, vast. The emergence of retail parks, supermarkets and online shopping provide an alternative format to the UK High Streets. Peter Jackson conducted a recent study to investigate why people choose to use retail parks in favour of Town Centre facilities (Hetherington, 2009).The study discovered that people preferred retail parks, not just for the goods on offer but because they provided a positive perception of a safe, convenient, and clean environment for family shopping.

Following Bauman’s concept, these individuals would be the “seduced” consumers. However these dedicated shopping sites rely heavily on car ownership and financial means. Retails parks effectively marginalise against a section of society who cannot use their facilities, for example the elderly, unemployed or non-car users, and in so doing create divisions. Similar marginalisation is emerging with the increased trend for online shopping.People who have the knowledge and ability to utilise the internet can gain discounts and convenient home shopping, whereas those who do not have the means and knowledge are excluded. Paradoxically whilst the choice of shopping formats continues to increase in number for some, others have seen their choices restricted with the declining number of independent retailers on the High Streets.

Since almost 75 per cent of money spent in the UK goes on food and groceries at the big four supermarkets, (Bevan cited in Allen, 2009) it is necessary to discuss the power these retailers have in influencing the way we shop. Read about reasons for acquiring hostages include publicityTheir presence means that

94% of us have a choice to shop at three different supermarkets within fifteen minutes of home (“Evidence in the Social Sciences – Audio CD1, track 1). Clearly there is little doubt that supermarkets have a dominant power in the marketplace, however there is conflicting opinion between pro- and anti-supermarket campaigners as to whether supermarkets use this power to broaden or restrict people’s choices.

Pro-support campaigners claim supermarkets use their power to benefit consumers, by providing convenient, affordable choice.Supermarkets today are more characteristic of department stores selling clothes, entertainment and electrical goods alongside basic essentials. Larger stores also offer people the convenience of additional services along with their shopping, for example post office, pharmacy and opticians. By addressing consumer’s expectations and using their buyer power they can offer a choice of products to reflect consumer’s diverse budgetary, dietary, ethical and environmental requirements.

Furthermore their global buyer power enables consumers to benefit from choosing exotic produce all year round.With 30,000,000 customers (Bevan cited in Allen, 2009) choosing to use the big four supermarkets on a weekly basis it would suggest that they provide a format that consumers want. Supermarkets also claim that their economic leverage enables them to benefit local communities by building stores and providing social and economic regeneration packages. One such example is Linwood, on the outskirts of Glasgow (Allen, 2009). The closure of a main employer left the centre of Linwood economically scarred.A proposal to build a new Tesco supermarket in the area and attract other special etailers to the ailing Town Centre was met with enthusiasm by local residents.

Supporters of supermarkets advocate that everyone within the supply chain (customers, communities and

suppliers) benefit from supermarkets, a concept Dennis Wrong terms the “positive sum game” (Allen, 2009). Anti-supermarket campaigners have a counterclaim that the big four abuse their dominant position in the marketplace and restrict peoples real choices, resulting in a “zero-sum game”. Recent developments of Tesco Express and Sainsbury Local stores on the High Street have resulted in supermarkets going into direct competition with independent retailers.The Federation of Small Businesses (cited in Allen, 2009, pg74) recorded that since the year 2000, approximately 2000 small retailers have closed every year, which was matched in a similar period by the Big four doubling the number of their stores. Helena Rimmer (“Evidence in the Social Sciences – Audio CD1, track 1) argues that true choice should be between diverse retailers, for example butchers, fishmongers and farmers markets and not between differing supermarket chains offering identical formats.

This is a view supported by residents of Partick, Glasgow where plans to develop a Tesco store have been met with objections on the grounds that a supermarket will have a detrimental effect on the economic viability of the local traders and the community (Allen, 2009). Anti-supermarket campaigners also claim that supermarkets restrict people’s real choice of produce by favouring to supply cheap globally grown or manufactured items over those items grown or made locally.This claim was illustrated by research into supermarket apples conducted by Friends of the Earth (“Evidence in the Social Sciences – Audio CD1). The study discovered that supermarkets favored selling foreign grown apples instead of locally grown produce. Some blame the supermarkets for the consequential decline in the number of orchards in the UK and the demise of species of

traditional British apples (“Panorama- ‘Supermarkets: What Price Cheap Food? ’”, BBC One, Tuesday 22 February 2011).Anti-supermarkets campaigners argue the gains obtained by the supermarkets are matched by a loss, or “zero-sum game”, on the true choices available to consumers, local communities and the suppliers.

There is no doubt that societies material life has led to a consumer society. For some, consuming will always be a mere case of acquiring life’s basic necessities. For others it is a means of belonging to an exclusive group and gaining an identity through what they buy.The combination of technological development, widespread car ownership and the growth of the supermarkets has led to some consumers gaining exceptional choice of what, where and how they consume.However, these developments have not been universally received and have created divisions within society. And whether you are in favour, unconcerned or incensed about the growth of supermarkets in the UK and the effect they have globally, the fact remains that they have reacted to people’s expectations and have provided a format that continues to influence our choices and which the vast majority of us chose to use on a regular basis.