Why Do People Use Alternative Retail Channels

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Why Do People Use Alternative Retail Channels? Some Case-study Evidence from Two English Cities Colin C. Williams Urban Stud 2002 39: 1897 DOI: 10.1080/0042098022000003019 The online version of this article can be found at: http://usj.sagepub.com/content/39/10/1897

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Urban Studies, Vol. 39, No. 10, 1897– 1910, 2002

Why Do People Use Alternative Retail Channels? Some Case-study Evidence from Two English Cities Colin C. Williams [Paper Ž rst received, November 2001; in Ž nal form, March 2002]

Summary. With the cultural turn/s in urban studies, participation in alternative retail channels (i.e. informal and/or second-hand modes of goods acquisition) has been reconceptualised as motivated more by the search for fun, sociality, distinction, discernment, the spectacular and so forth rather than by economic necessity. The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically this view. Drawing upon 511 interviews conducted in af uent and deprived neighbourhoods of two English cities, this is found to re ect accurately the meanings that relatively af uent populations attach to their usage of alternative retail channels. However, economic necessity remains the principal reason amongst lower-income urban populations who view their reliance on such channels when the majority does not as a sign of their exclusion from mainstream consumption practices. The paper thus concludes by calling for greater sensitivity to economic processes and recognition of the socio-spatial variations in the meanings of such channels.

Introduction Over the past decade or so, the ‘cultural turn/s’ in urban studies has/have resulted in retail spaces being understood not only as material sites for commodity exchange but also as symbolic and metaphorical territories which (re)produce meanings and constitute identities (see, for example, Abelson, 1989; Benson, 1986; Buck-Morss, 1989; Campbell, 1987; Crewe, 2000; Dowling, 1993; Leach, 1984; McCracken, 1998; Williamson, 1992; Willis, 1991; Wolff, 1985). Much of this literature has focused upon formal retail spaces such as the high street, the mall, the

superstore and the department store (see, for example, Chaney, 1990; Feinberg et al., 1989; Glennie and Thrift, 1992; Goss, 1993; Gottdiener, 1986, 1997; Hopkins, 1990; Nava, 1995; Shields, 1989). Recently, however, attempts have been made to understand how meanings are produced and identities constituted in hitherto neglected retail channels such as the car-boot sale (see, for example, Crewe and Gregson, 1998; Gregson and Crewe, 1997a, 1997b; Gregson et al., 1997) and the charity shop (for example, Gregson et al., 2002).

Colin C. Williams is in the Department of Geography, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK. Fax: 0116 252 3854. E-mail: [email protected] . The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has supported this project as part of its programme of research and innovative developmen t projects, which it hopes will be of value to policy-makers and practitioners . The facts presented and views expressed in this paper, however, are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Foundation . Gratitude is expressed by the author to both the Joseph Rowntree Foundatio n for funding this project and to Stephen Hughes for providin g the research assistance to bring it to fruition. The author would also like to thank the three anonymous referees for their excellent comments on an earlier version of this paper. 0042-098 0 Print/1360-063 X On-line/02/101897-14 Ó 2002 The Editors of Urban Studies Downloaded from usj.sagepub.com at University of Sheffield on August 7, 2013 DOI: 10.1080/004209802200000301 9

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These studies challenge the view of alternative retail channels as used purely out of economic necessity mainly by the disadvantaged. Revealing how wider social groups participate in such channels, they then proceed to document how these channels are about fun and sociality, distinction, display, possession, the spectacular and being seen to be buying the ‘right’ things (for example, Crewe and Gregson, 1998). The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically this re-reading of why people participate in alternative retail channels. Are alternative retail channels everywhere and always sources of fun, sociality, the spectacular and so forth? Or is there a need to differentiate the contrasting social and/or spatial meanings of goods acquisition in these channels? For example, are there other voices that need to be heard who ascribe different meanings to goods acquisition in these channels than those so far heard? If so, what meanings are produced by alternative retail channels for these groups? And do they constitute their identities in a different manner than has been so far considered? To answer these questions, this paper interrogates evidence gathered during 511 face-to-face interviews in relatively deprived and af uent neighbourhood s of two English cities on the extent to which alternative retail channels are used and why they are used. This will reveal that these channels are sources of fun, sociality, display and the spectacular, but only for relatively af uent participants. For relatively deprived populations who more heavily rely on these alternative retail channels to acquire their goods, this cultural reading is found to signiŽ cantly underemphasise their on-going material roles and subdue the particular ways in which alternative retail channels produce meanings and constitute their identities. Amongst relatively deprived populations, economic necessity remains the chief reason for using informal and/or second-hand modes of goods acquisition and participation in such channels when the majority does not is primarily viewed as signifying their social exclusion from mainstream consumption.

In this paper, therefore, it will be argued that, if the ways in which alternative retail channels produce meanings and constitute identities are to be more fully understood, there is a need for greater sensitivity to broader economic processes as well as the socio-spatial variations in meanings. Rather than seek to replace a presumed economic essentialism with culturally essentialist accounts, a more pluralist both/and approach will be advocated. To show this, Ž rst, this paper reviews the previous literature on alternative retail channels. Secondly, the methods used to analyse the extent to which households use alternative retail channels and why they are used in two English cities are explored. Thirdly, the results are reported on the extent and unevenness of participation in such channels and, fourthly, the rationales for participating in them are investigated. Fifthly and Ž nally, the implications of these Ž ndings for explaining participation in alternative retail channels will be discussed. Before commencing, however, a brief outline of what is meant by ‘alternative retail channels’ is required. The working deŽ nition here adopted is that these are modes of goods acquisition that do not involve acquiring new goods from formal retail outlets and mail order companies. In other words, included under the umbrella of ‘alternative retail channels’ are all informal and/or second-hand modes of goods acquisition. On the one hand, therefore, there are informal (and usually second-hand) modes of goods acquisition such as acquiring goods from kin, friends and neighbours as well as personal adverts (such as in shop windows or local newspapers). On the other hand, there are second-hand modes of goods acquisition such as car-boot sales, second-hand shops and market stalls selling second-hand goods as well as instances where goods come with accommodation. Conceptualising Alternative Retail Channels Currently, little is known about the extent to

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USE OF ALTERNATIVE RETAIL CHANNELS

Table 1. Use of alternative shopping channels in past 12 months, 2000 (percentages) Market stall

Charity shop

Car-boot sale

All

40

28

22

Occupational group Professional and management Clerical and technical Skilled manual Semi-skilled manual Unskilled manual

31 37 43 46 49

26 27 26 28 37

13 19 21 21 21

SpeciŽ c groups BeneŽ t claimants Families on a tight budget Better-off families Better-off families without children Working managers Working women

47 50 26 38 24 44

40 25 28 25 22 31

20 32 20 15 11 24

Source: derived from Mintel (2000, Tables 37 and 38).

which urban consumers acquire their goods new from formal retail outlets and the degree to which they rely on informal and/or second-hand sources for their goods. For some, nevertheless, the perception is that urban consumers in advanced capitalist economies acquire a sizeable proportion of goods from alternative retail channels. Personal advertisements in nearly every local newspaper and newsagents window, the prevalence of car-boot sales, jumble sales and charity shops are all suggested to provide clear anecdotal evidence that there is a market in secondhand and/or informal goods exchange. As Miller et al. assert By value alone, this market is massive … yet, even now, it is remarkably little studied. Perhaps this is because secondhand goods are seen as historically more important than now. If so, this judgement is incorrect (Miller et al., 1998, p. 195). Recently, nevertheless, some inroads have been made into this previously neglected realm. A number of studies have been undertaken of the usage of particular marginal retail sites, such as charity shops (Mintel, 1997, 2000; Horne, 1998) and car-boot sales (Stone et al., 1996), as well as in-depth ethnographic investigations of these channels

(Crewe and Gregson, 1998; Gregson and Crewe, 1994, 1997a and 1997b; Gregson et al., 1997). This research often implies that it has long been assumed that informal and/or secondhand modes of goods acquisition were principally used by disadvantaged populations unable to buy new goods from formal retail outlets and that their existence was popularly explained in purely economic terms (see, for example, Crewe, 2000). Marginal urban populations, confronted by structural economic constraints, were forced to turn to such channels in order to acquire goods that they would be otherwise unable to acquire. Having set up this ‘straw person’, it is claimed that the valuable contribution of this new research is to show that this is not the case. Their Ž nding is that af uent social groups comprise a substantial proportion of those who shop at car-boot sales (Stone et al., 1996) and charity shops (Mintel, 1997, 2000). As Table 1 displays, even though ‘marginalised’ groups (for example, unskilled manual occupations, beneŽ t claimants) most extensively use these channels, the vast majority of users appear to come from groups that one would not deŽ ne as marginalised. Based on this, both the nature of exchange

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in alternative retail channels and the reasons for people participating in these channels have been reconceptualised. On the nature of exchange, one of the key contributions of this literature is that it highlights how commodity exchange is oversimpliŽ ed in much economistic discourse. It challenges both the neo-liberal view that commodity exchange is always rational and proŽ t-motivated (see Crang, 1996; Crewe and Gregson, 1998; Davies, 1992; Lee, 2000; Zelizer, 1994) as well as the anthropological tradition that sees exchange in advanced economies as less ‘embedded’, ‘thinner’, less loaded with social meaning and less symbolic than in preindustrial societies (for example, Mauss, 1966). As Crewe and Gregson (1998, p. 41) put it, “such market-based models of exchange … simply … do not convey the richness and messiness of the exchange experience” in the advanced economies. To explain why people participate in these alternative retail channels, these studies argue that the earlier consumption literature which “privileged economically driven explanations … at the expense of more culturally sensitive accounts” (Crewe, 2000, p. 276) is no longer relevant. The participation of so many relatively af uent consumers in such channels is asserted to require new explanations for participation. In their study of the car-boot sale, Crewe and Gregson (1998) thus argue that participation is seen to result from the search for fun, sociality, distinction, display, the spectacular, the bargain and being seen to be buying the ‘right’ things. The outcome is that they assert how readings of such channels grounded in economic determinism need to be replaced by not only more culturally sensitive accounts but of a variety that relies on agencyorientated explanations. The key issue that this paper seeks to address, however, is whether this re-reading of alternative retail channels reports only the motives of the dominant users of these channels (i.e. the relatively af uent) and leaves other more ‘marginal’ voices hidden from view. Is it the case, for example, that the degree of agency assigned to participation in

these channels signiŽ cantly underemphasises their on-going material roles as well as the speciŽ c meanings of these places for deprived populations in terms of identity formation? To evaluate this, an empirical study was conducted of af uent and deprived populations in two English cities. Examining Alternative Retail Channels in Two English Urban Areas In 1998/99, the goods acquisition practices of households and the reasons why they use particular modes of goods acquisition were examined through face-to-face interviews with 511 households in relatively af uent and deprived neighbourhood s of an af uent southern city (Southampton) and a relatively deprived northern city (ShefŽ eld). Using the Census of Deprivation Index that ranks all 8000-odd UK neighbourhoods according to an index of multiple deprivation indicators (DETR, 2000), the most af uent neighbourhood in Southampton and in ShefŽ eld was selected, with 50 and 61 interviews conducted in each city respectively. Following this, the two most deprived localities in each city were chosen for investigation. In each case, one was a lower-income inner-city neighbourhood (and 100 interviews were conducted in each city) and the other a ‘sink’ council estate (again 100 interviews in each city). These neighbourhood s thus represented the extremes in the two cities in terms of af uence and deprivation (see Williams and Windebank, 2001). Hence, although the results cannot be taken as representative of the city as a whole, they enable identiŽ cation of how the motives for engaging in alternative retail channels vary between af uent and deprived populations and thus, the testing of the above thesis about the socio-spatial meanings of participation in such channels. The focus, to repeat, was to identify why deprived populations participate in alternative retail channels. The interviews in af uent suburbs, meanwhile, were conducted to provide both a set of interviews against which the motives of the deprived populations could be compared and a means of

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USE OF ALTERNATIVE RETAIL CHANNELS

conŽ rming or rejecting the thesis that studies of speciŽ c channels had reported the motives of mostly af uent populations. This is one of the main reasons why nearly twice as many interviews were thus conducted in each of the deprived neighbourhood s as in the af uent suburbs.1 In each of the six neighbourhoods studied, the same sampling procedure was used. The researcher called at every nth dwelling in each street, depending on the size of the neighbourhood and the number of interviews sought. If there was no response, then the researcher called back once. If there was still no response and/or they were refused an interview, then the nth 1 1 house was surveyed (again with one call-back), then the nth 2 1 dwelling, nth 1 2 and so on. This provided a representative sample of the neighbourhood in terms of tenure and type of housing and prevented any skew in the sample towards certain tenures, types of dwelling and different parts of the neighbourhood being interviewed rather than a representative sample of the whole neighbourhood . In the preliminary pilot study which used relatively unstructured interviews, it was found both that respondents had difŽ culties recalling what goods they had recently acquired and that analysing practices and preferences across households was problematic due to the wide range of items that had been acquired. Consequently, a structured interview method was designed, centred on six goods: clothes, DIY tools, refrigerators, cookers, furniture and cars. These were chosen to re ect a broad range of goods with different unit costs—a variable that the pilot study had highlighted was in uential in shaping the mode of goods acquisition used. For each item, households were Ž rst asked if they had ever acquired the item. If so, how the good had been obtained the last time that they had procured it was explored by examining from whom/where it had been obtained, whether they had paid for it or not and how much they had paid. They were then asked in an open-ended manner why the good had been obtained in that particular manner. Finally, they were asked from where

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they would ideally have liked to acquire it and why this had not been possible. The responses on how goods were acquired were then categorised into eight modes of goods acquisition that were generated by the pilot study. These eight modes can be perceived as lying on a continuum running from wholly informal at one end of the spectrum to wholly formal at the other extreme. Commencing with the informal end of the continuum and proceeding to the more formal end, goods were found to be acquired from: relatives; friends and/or neighbours; personal adverts (such as in newspapers, shop windows); market stalls and/or car-boot sales; second-hand shops; accommodation (for example, came with rented accommodation or a new house); mail order companies; and formal retail outlets. In this paper, to repeat, alternative retail channels refer to all modes of goods acquisition that do not involve acquiring new goods from formal retail outlets and mail order companies. Participation in Alternative Retail Channels in English Urban Areas Before examining the meanings attached to participation in these alternative retail channels and whether these meanings vary sociospatially, it is useful to outline brie y the extent and unevenness of participation in such channels. Extent of Participation in Alternative Retail Channels As mentioned above, prior to this study, few reliable data have been available on the propensity of households to acquire goods informally and/or second-hand. Instead, there have only been studies of the usage of speciŽ c marginal spaces such as the car-boot sale and the charity shop (for example, Horne, 1998; Mintel, 1997, 2000; Stone et al., 1996). The key Ž nding here is that 2 out of every 5 of these goods (40 per cent) in the deprived neighbourhoods and just over 1 in 5 (21 per cent) in the af uent suburbs were last acquired either through informal transactions with relatives, friends and neighbours, from

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Table 2. Modes of acquiring goods: by type of good (percentages of households) Source of good:

All

Clothes

DIY tools

Fridge

Cooker

Furniture

Car

68 12 6 4 0 0 6 2 2

60 2 1 5 1 5 20 6 3

52 6 10 1 3 1 10 11 2

47 3 14 2 11 2 11 8 2

48 10 7 1 4 3 13 10 4

44 0 0 0 16 0 11 24 6

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

78 1 1 0 4 3 5 4 4

82 1 3 1 5 0 2 3 4

83 1 0 0 2 0 5 3 6

78 1 2 0 1 5 4 5 4

82 1 1 0 3 11 1 0 2

71 2 1 1 4 1 12 5 3

76 4 0 0 9 0 1 8 3

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Deprived urban neighbourhood s Retail outlets 54 Mail order 6 Second-hand shops 7 Market/car-boot sale 2 Personal advert 4 Came with house 4 Relative 11 Friend/neighbour 9 Other 3 All Af uent suburbs Retail outlets Mail order Second-hand shops Market/car-boot sale Personal advert Came with house Relative Friend/neighbour Other All

Note: Ž gures have been rounded up and so do not always equal 100.

people advertising their sale, from secondhand shops, market stalls and car-boot sales, or came with the dwelling. SuperŽ cially, therefore, alternative retail channels appear to be by no means ‘marginal’ sites, especially so far as higher unit cost goods are concerned (see Table 2). There is little evidence however, that these alternative markets are as ‘massive’ as Miller et al. (1998) claim. Indeed, when measured in terms of the total amount of money spent, the market share of these channels is much smaller than the data in Table 2 suggest. As Table 3 reveals, in deprived neighbourhoods , just 19 per cent of all expenditure on these 6 goods took place in alternative retail channels and 6 per cent in af uent suburbs. This is due to the lower unit cost of such goods in alternative retail channels. For example, despite 30 per cent of clothes being last acquired through informal and second-hand channels in deprived neighbourhoods , these channels received just 7 per cent of the total

money last spent on clothes. Similarly, although 7 per cent of these 6 goods were last acquired in second-hand shops, this represented only 1 per cent in terms of total expenditure. In sum, contrary to claims about their ‘massive’ size, informal and/or secondhand channels were quite small when measured in terms of total expenditure. Unevenness of Participation in Alternative Retail Channels Turning to the unevenness of participation in these sites, this study displays that there are both spatial and social variations in the usage of informal and second-hand retail channels. Previous studies of speciŽ c alternative retail channels show that relatively af uent consumers constitute the majority of users (see, for example, Mintel, 2000). As Table 2 reveals, however, although relatively af uent consumers might be the major users of these speciŽ c channels, it is the populations of

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USE OF ALTERNATIVE RETAIL CHANNELS

Table 3. Expenditure on goods: by mode of goods acquisition (percentages of expenditure) Source of good

All

Deprived urban neighbourhoods Retail outlets 72 Mail order 9 Second-hand shops 1 Market/car-boot sale 1 Personal advert 6 Came with house 0 Relative 4 Friend/neighbour 3 Other 4

Clothes

DIY tools

Fridge

Cooker

Furniture

Car

70 23 3 1 1 0 1 1 0

81 9 1 7 1 0 0 1 0

79 11 5 1 1 0 0 3 0

73 7 9 1 2 2 4 2 0

75 18 3 1 1 0 1 1 0

71 0 0 0 8 0 3 13 5

All

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Af uent suburbs Retail outlets Mail order Second-hand shops Market/car-boot sale Personal advert Came with house Relative Friend/neighbour Other

90 2 1 , 1 2 , 1 2 2 1

91 5 3 , 1 1 0 , 1 , 1 1

91 4 0 0 1 0 1 1 2

90 7 , 1 0 , 1 0 1 1 1

92 6 , 1 0 1 0 1 0 0

74 6 9 2 4 1 2 1 1

94 1 0 0 2 0 1 2 1

All

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Note: Ž gures have been rounded up and so do not always equal 100.

deprived neighbourhood s who most extensively use informal and/or second-hand channels in their goods acquisition practices, at least in these two cities. Similarly, and as Table 4 displays, it is not af uent consumers who rely most heavily on alternative retail channels to acquire their goods, but those with a weak attachment to the labour market. For example, the last time that multiple-earner households acquired the 6 goods surveyed, 72 per cent of these goods were purchased from formal retail outlets (including mail order companies), but only 58 per cent in single-earner and 54 per cent in no-earner households. Employment status and household income (even when not equivalised), in consequence, are key determinants of whether goods are bought new from formal retail outlets (for an in-depth analysis, see Williams and Windebank, 2000). Hence, the degree to which informal and/ or second-hand channels are used in these English urban areas displays some signiŽ cant

socio-spatial variations. While af uent populations are more likely to acquire goods new from formal retail outlets, deprived populations rely more heavily on informal and/or second-hand modes of goods acquisition. Here, the reasons why this is the case are explored. Rationales for Using Alternative Retail Channels How can the participation of these populations in acquiring goods second-hand and from beyond formal retail outlets be explained? Is it the case, as studies of the car-boot sale have argued, that these alternative retail spaces can be explained in cultural, even agency-orientated, terms? Or is it the case that there is sometimes the need to bring more economic motivations to the fore? Starting with the rationales of the higherincome consumers living in af uent suburbs, there is little doubt that the previous Ž ndings

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8 12

By gross household income . £250/week , £250/week 7 10

8 10 9

Friend/ neighbour

3 5

3 5 4

Personal advert

1 2

2 0 3

Market stall

Note: Ž gures have been rounded up and so do not always equal 100.

7 13 12

By number of earners Multiple Single None

Relatives

4 9

3 6 10 6 3

2 4 5

7 6

7 6 5

Second-hand Came with Mail shop house order

Table 4. Modes used to acquire all six goods (percentages of households)

61 49

65 52 49

Retail outlet

3 2

2 4 3

Other

100 100

100 100 100

All

1904 COLIN C. WILLIAMS

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concerning reasons for participation in alternative retail channels apply. When these af uent urban populations used such channels to acquire goods, they did so for many of the reasons outlined in the work on carboot sales cited earlier. Take, for example, the acquisition of furniture. Those using the car-boot sale, second-hand shop and personal adverts did so in order to acquire older furniture of perceptibly higher quality than that sold in retail stores or else to acquire furniture that they could subsequently alter (for example, by painting) to suit their individual tastes and/or requirements. For nearly all of these af uent urban households, participation in these alternative retail channels was a matter of choice, not lack of choice. For them, it was “good fun seeking out something different”, “brilliant rummaging around for that ‘je ne sais quoi’ ”, “one of the more fun things we do at a weekend”, “great because you can haggle” and “a way of making your home re ect who you are”. Quote after quote in this study of af uent suburbs reinforced all of the ideas being put forward by cultural economic geographers that alternative retail channels are about fun, discernment, sociality, distinction, display, possession, the spectacular, seeking out bargains and being seen to be buying the ‘right’ things. That these data from af uent areas reinforce previous research Ž ndings on the meanings of car-boot sales and charity shops is not surprising. After all, to repeat, such groups are the main users of these alternative channels (Mintel, 1997, 2000; Stone et al., 1996) so it is to be expected that these dominant voices come through loudest in these reports. Are there, however, minority voices that need to be heard? Turning to the populations of the deprived urban neighbourhoods , a very different narrative emerged. When the 6 goods were last acquired through these informal or secondhand sources, in 86 per cent of cases, their Ž rst choice was to buy the goods new from formal retail outlets and/or mail order companies. Why, therefore, did they not do so? In 92 per cent of these cases, it was due to economic constraints (in the remaining 8 per

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cent of cases, it was accessibility). Hence, there is a strong normative view that the purchase of new goods from formal retail outlets was their Ž rst choice but that because of economic circumstances, their Ž rst option, but second choice, was the acquisition of goods from these other sources. Just because economic constraints explain most of the participation of these deprived urban populations in alternative retail channels, however, does not imply that the meaning of these places is unimportant. For the populations of these deprived urban neighbourhoods, it is again the case that these channels produce meanings and construct their identities but in very different ways from those that have been discussed in the previous literature. To see how and why this is the case, it is necessary both to explore how these deprived urban consumers view their participation in these channels and to ground these Ž ndings in the broader debates about the nature of poverty and social exclusion. Recently, Gordon et al. (2000) have up-dated the ‘Breadline in Britain’ survey. They examine the proportion of households who are unable to afford to acquire ‘necessities’, deŽ ned as items that the majority of the population (more than 50 per cent) believe all adults should be able to afford and which they should not have to do without. Their Ž nding is that in 1999, nearly 1 in 4 (24 per cent) households lacked 3 or more of these goods because they could not afford them. Missing from this study, however, is a deeper analysis of whether it is solely the lack of ability to obtain such items that people view as deŽ ning them as ‘included’ or ‘excluded’ from mainstream consumption practices (see Williams and Windebank, forthcoming). If social exclusion is taken to refer to the situation in which certain members of a society are, or become, separated from much that comprises the normal ‘round’ of living and working within that society (Philo, 2000, p. 751), then it is not just whether one is able to

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acquire goods that deŽ nes one as included or excluded, but also whether one does so in mainstream ways. To evaluate whether this is indeed the case, the meanings attached by lower-income groups to their participation in alternative retail channels were examined. This conŽ rms that they view themselves as excluded from mainstream goods acquisition practices not only when they cannot afford to acquire goods but also when they are reliant on alternative retail channels (for example, carboot sales, second-hand shops) to obtain them when the majority of people are not. For these consumers, it is not just their inability to acquire goods that marks them out from others, but also their economic reliance on alternative retail channels. Take, for example, the acquisition of furniture, cookers and refrigerators. Across 98 per cent of all households in the deprived urban neighbourhoods , the common ideal was to obtain all of these items new from formal retail outlets. For nearly all households who had acquired these goods from alternative retail channels, it was therefore not a matter of choice; they wanted to buy these goods new from retail outlets but could not afford to do so. As one woman put it Nobody chooses to buy their cooker second-hand but you have to have one. When ours broke, we had no choice. If he gets this job [the husband had a job interview later that week], we’ll be able to be like everyone else though. The overwhelming perception of these consumers was that their reliance on such sites to acquire goods meant that they were not part of mainstream consumption practices. One portrayed how he views himself as separate from the mainstream as follows I would love to be able to wander into the co-op and have the assistant go ‘yes sir, no sir’. That’s my dream … But we can’t buy things like that. We look in the newspaper, we keep our ears to the ground, we look out for people chucking things out, we ask around. There’s one world for the rich in

their plush shops where they throw their money away like it’s going out of fashion and one for us. For these people, therefore, reliance on alternative retail channels has little to do with fun, sociality, discernment and so forth. It certainly produces meanings for them and constructs their identities, but in far more negative ways than have so far been considered in the literature. Participation in alternative retail channels is a sign that they are unable to be like everyone else and a symbol that they are excluded from the mainstream. As an unemployed man asserted If you’ve got plenty of money, going down St Mary’s [an area of second-hand shops] or up the boot sale must be a laugh. It ain’t for me. I needed an electric Ž re— we’ve only got the oven—and I thought I’d wait ‘til near the end and then I’d get it a few quid cheaper. Some posh git went and bought it didn’t he … Said to his missus it was for his shed … I ask you. It made me realise just how low I’ve sunk in the last few years since I got my injury … I used to be like him and all the others with their spare cash. Indeed, there are good reasons for them viewing their participation in such a manner. Some 30 per cent of the people in these deprived neighbourhoods acquiring refrigerators and cookers second-hand and/or informally reported that they had been faulty. As one unemployed man put it I bought a fridge out of the middle of The Echo [i.e. the ‘for sale’ column in the local evening newspaper]. When I got it home, it stank the place out. I rang the bloke up and he told me I must have broke it on the way home … At least robbers wear a mask. Participation in alternative channels is thus taken to be a sign of exclusion from mainstream consumption and often quite rightly so given the quality of the goods obtained. However, this perception of their exclusion from the mainstream does not always apply

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when goods are acquired informally and/or second-hand in these deprived populations. It depends upon whether the majority of the population is also perceived to be reliant on such alternative channels. With regard to cars, in consequence, it is not whether they are bought new or second-hand that marks out consumers as excluded from normal consumption practices, but whether or not they can acquire one. This is because buying a car second-hand is not seen to exclude them from the mainstream since the majority is seen to do so. For most of the higher unit cost goods, however, consumers perceived reliance on these alternative retail channels to set them apart because the majority does not acquire goods in such a manner. It is not only when relatively high unit cost goods are acquired through these channels, however, that participants mark themselves down as separate from the mainstream and a ‘lower species’ as one unemployed man put it. It is also the case when they acquire lower unit cost goods in this manner when the majority does not. A good deal has been written on clothes retailing, often exploring post-modern themes such as how people buy clothes second-hand and inscribe them with their own meaning such as through the ‘grunge’, ‘ragamufŽ n’ or ‘bohemian’ look (see, for example, Nava, 1995; Willis, 1991). This study, however, reveals a very different situation from this preponderance amongst essentially young middle-class women (McRobbie, 1989). In the deprived urban neighbourhoods , the last time that an item of clothing was acquired, 80 per cent of households had bought the item new from either a retail store or a mail order company. This higher overall level compared with other goods re ects the lower unit cost of clothing but also the polarisation of clothes shops in the UK between more expensive designer shops and ‘bargain-basement’ clothes stores (Crewe and Forster, 1993), the latter providing access to relatively low-cost new clothes for deprived populations. It also re ects consumers’ perceptions of the importance of clothing in maintaining self-respect in the face of Ž nancial adversity. There were few

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cases in these deprived urban neighbourhoods of people deliberately buying secondhand. They sought to buy new ‘at all costs’. Despite the dominance of such formal modes of acquiring their most recent clothes, however, the reliance of a minority on alternative sources should not be ignored. Contrary to current discourses in the postmodernist retail literature, this was not a choice. It was an act inscribed with meaning and which constituted identities, but not in the way usually described in the literature. Indeed, the only rationale these purchasers gave was that it was a coping strategy to get them over what they viewed as a temporary Ž nancial problem. Their sole reason for buying clothes second-hand was that it was cheaper and all that they could afford at the time. Few bought second-hand from such shops as a long-term strategy. They perceive it as a sign that they are no longer capable of getting-by and of their inability to be like everybody else. As one unemployed woman put it I needed a coat and couldn’t afford new. It’ll just get me through this winter. Mind you, I would never tell anybody that I bought it second-hand. I’ll get a proper one in the sales if I can like everybody else. Acquiring clothes from such outlets signalled to them their ‘exclusion’ from mainstream consumption. These results, of course, were very different in more af uent populations and would be very different if one conducted a survey of users of second-hand shops due to the prominence of af uent consumers (Mintel, 2000). For these more af uent households, the use of second-hand outlets such as the charity shop is a choice. For the households in these lower-income urban neighbourhoods , it is due to a lack of choice. In sum, this study of English cities reveals that af uent consumers do indeed engage in alternative retail channels for fun, sociality, distinction and being seen to buy the right things. However, there is also another group of relatively deprived consumers who are forced through economic constraints into

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these goods acquisition practices. For this group, the use of alternative retail channels does indeed lead to the production of meanings and constitution of identities, but not in the ways previously discussed in the literature. They perceive themselves as excluded from the mainstream not only when they cannot obtain goods, but also when they are reliant on these sites to obtain them when it is perceived that the majority are not. Conclusions This paper has shown how one particular type of material site for commodity exchange—namely alternative retail channels—produces meanings and constitutes identities in different ways in different populations. In relatively af uent urban populations, these channels are sources of fun, discernment, distinction and the spectacular. In relatively deprived urban populations, however, these material sites produce meanings and constitute identities in very different ways. Their participation in these spaces is seen to mark them out as excluded from the mainstream. They perceive not only their inability to buy new goods from formal retail outlets but also their reliance on alternative retail channels (such as family and friends, car-boot sales, second-hand shops) when most people do not as signifying their exclusion from mainstream consumption practices. This clearly shows that a cultural sensitivity to meaning and identity has a central place in urban studies. It not only provides a fuller understanding of sites of commodity exchange such as alternative retail channels but also greatly enhances our understanding of key issues such as poverty and social exclusion. However, this study also reveals that meaning needs to be put in its place in two senses. There is a need to recognise, on the one hand, how these vary socio-spatially and, on the other hand, that the meanings of material sites cannot be studied in a vacuum. Although earlier consumption literature “privileged economically driven explanations of retail change at the expense of more cul-

turally sensitive accounts” (Crewe, 2000, p. 276), this paper has shown that the pendulum should not now shift to cultural accounts that attempt to eradicate all traces of economic drivers. As Sayer (1997, p. 16) puts it, “economic forces continue to dominate contemporary life, and thus, however unfashionable, economic analysis cannot be sidelined”. Meanings, as displayed above, are intimately linked to economic processes. This recognition should not be interpreted as a call for economic essentialism. Rather, it displays the need to transcend the dualistic either– or thinking of both economic and cultural essentialism that leads analysts to claim that culturally sensitive accounts need to replace economic accounts, and vice versa. Instead, the results indicate how such binary thinking needs to be replaced by a more pluralist both – and approach that recognises the importance of both economic processes and the socio-spatial variations in the meanings of such channels. Only then will it be possible to understand more fully participation in such material spaces of commodity exchange and to develop policy interventions that recognise how poverty and social exclusion are not just material but also cultural phenomena. Notes 1.

This, of course, was not an ideal samplingframe. It would have been preferable to sample the same number of households in af uent suburbs as in deprived neighbourhoods. The problem, however, was that funding was only provided to study deprived neighbourhoods . The researchers thus undertook on an unpaid basis the 111 face-to-face interviews in the af uent suburbs to provide these comparative data.

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