Shopping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaFor other uses, see Shopping (disambiguation).This articl...

1. Shopping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shopping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Shopping (disambiguation). This article needs additional citations for
verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced
material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008) Shoppers at
Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto, Canada, in December 2009.
A retailer or shop is a business that presents a selection of goods or services and offers to sell them
to customers for money or other goods. Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the
available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the intent to purchase a suitable
selection of them. In some contexts it may be considered a leisure activity as well as an economic
one.
A woman shopping at a shopping mall in the United States in
December 2005.
The shopping experience can range from delightful to terrible, based on a variety of factors
including how the customer is treated, convenience, the type of goods being purchased, and
mood.[1]
The shopping experience can also be influenced by other shoppers. For example, research from a
field experiment found that male and female shoppers who were accidentally touched from behind
by other shoppers left a store earlier than people who had not been touched and evaluated brands
more negatively, resulting in the Accidental Interpersonal Touch effect.[2]
According to a 2000 report, in the U.S. state of New York, women purchase 80% of all consumer
goods and influence 80% of health-care decisions.[3]
Contents1 History1.1 Ancient era1.2 Consumer shopping1.3 Department stores2 Shopping

2. venues2.1 Shopping hubs2.2 Stores2.2.1 Home shopping2.2.2 Neighborhood shopping2.2.3 Party
shopping3 Shopping Activity3.1 Regulation3.2 Shopping seasons4 Pricing and negotiation4.1
"Window shopping"5 See also6 References
History[edit]
Ancient era[edit]
In ancient Greece, the agora served as a marketplace where merchants kept stalls or shops to sell
their goods. Ancient Rome utilized a similar marketplace known as the forum. For example, there
was Trajan's Market with tabernae that served as retailing units.
Shopping lists are known to have been used by Romans, as one was discovered near Hadrian's wall
dated back to 75"125 CE written for a soldier.[4]
Fairs and markets were established to facilitate the exchange of goods and services. People would
shop for goods at a weekly market in nearby towns.
Consumer shopping[edit] Bernard Mandeville's work Fable of the
Bees, which justified conspicuous consumption.
The modern phenomenon of shopping is closely linked to the emergence of the consumer society in
the 18th century. Over the course of the two centuries from 1600 onwards, the purchasing power of
the average Englishman steadily rose. Sugar consumption doubled in the first half of the 18th
century and the availability of a wide range of luxury goods, including tea, cotton and tobacco saw a
sustained increase.[5]
Marketplaces dating back to the Middle Ages, expanded as shopping centres, such as the New
Exchange, opened in 1609 by Robert Cecil in the Strand. Shops started to become important as
places for Londoners to meet and socialise and became popular destinations alongside the theatre.
Restoration London also saw the growth of luxury buildings as advertisements for social position
with speculative architects like Nicholas Barbon and Lionel Cranfield.
Much pamphleteering of the time was devoted to justifying conspicuous consumption and private
vice for luxury goods for the greater public good. This then scandalous line of thought caused great
controversy with the publication of Bernard Mandeville's influential work Fable of the Bees in 1714,
in which he argued that a country's prosperity ultimately lay in the self-interest of the consumer.[6]
Josiah Wedgewood's pottery, a status symbol of consumerism in
the late 18th century.

3. These trends were vastly accelerated in the 18th century, as rising prosperity and social mobility
increased the number of people with disposable income for consumption. Important shifts included
the marketing of goods for individuals as opposed to items for the household, and the new status of
goods as status symbols, related to changes in fashion and desired for aesthetic appeal, as opposed
to just their utility. The pottery inventor and entrepreneur, Josiah Wedgewood, pioneered the use of
marketing techniques to influence and manipulate the direction of the prevailing tastes.[7]
As the century wore on a tremendous variety of goods and manufactures were steadily made
available for the urban middle and upper classes. This growth in consumption led to the rise of
'shopping' - a proliferation of retail shops selling particular goods and the acceptance of shopping as
a cultural activity in its own right. Specific streets and districts became devoted to retail, including
the Strand and Picadilly in London.[5]
The first display windows in shops were installed in the late 18th century in London. Retailer Francis
Place was one of the first to experiment with this new retailing method at his tailoring establishment
in Charing Cross, where he fitted the shop-front with large plateglass windows. Although this was
condemned by many, he defended his practice in his memoirs, claiming that he:
sold from the window more goods...than paid journeymen's wages and the expenses of
housekeeping.[8]
Retailers designed attractive shop fronts to entice patronage, using bright lights, advertisements
and attractively arranged goods. The goods on offer were in a constant state of change, due to the
frenetic change in fashions. A foreign visitor thought that London was "A world of gold and silver
plate, then pearls and gems shedding their dazzling lustre, home manufactures of the most exquisite
taste, an ocean of rings, watches, chains, bracelets, perfumes, ready-dresses, ribbons, lace, bonnets,
and fruits from all the zones of the habitable world".[5]
Department stores[edit] Le Bon March?(C), founded in Paris,
offered a wide variety of goods in "departments" inside one building, from 1851.
The next stage in shopping was the transition from 'single-function' shops selling one type of good,
to the department store where a large variety of foods were sold, ordered by department. As
economic growth, fuelled by the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th-century, steadily
expande, the affluent bourgeois middle-class grew in size and wealth. This urbanized social group
was the catalyst for the emergence of the retail revolution of the period. The first reliably dated
department store to be established, was Harding, Howell & Co, which opened in 1796 on Pall Mall,
London.[9]
This venture was described as being a public retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer
goods in different departments. This pioneering shop was closed down in 1820 when the business
partnership was dissolved. Department stores were established on a large scale from the 1840s and
50s, in France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Shopping venues[edit]
Shopping hubs[edit]

4. A larger commercial zone can be found in many cities, more formally called a central business
district, but more commonly called "downtown" in the United States, or in Arab cities, souks.
Shopping hubs, or shopping centers, are collections of stores; that is a grouping of several
businesses.
A group of women window shopping in Toronto, Canada in 1937.
Typical examples include shopping malls, town squares, flea markets and bazaars.
Stores[edit]
Stores are divided into multiple categories of stores which sell a selected set of goods or services.
Usually they are tiered by target demographics based on the disposable income of the shopper. They
can be tiered from cheap to pricey.
Some shops sell secondhand goods. Often the public can also sell goods to such shops. In other
cases, especially in the case of a nonprofit shops, the public donates goods to these shops, commonly
known as thrift stores in the United States or charity shops in the United Kingdom. In give-away
shops goods can be taken for free. In antique shops, the public can find goods that are older and
harder to find. Sometimes people are broke and borrow money from a pawn shop using an item of
value as collateral. College students are known to resell books back though college textbook
bookstores. Old used items are often distributed though surplus stores.
Many shops are part of a shopping center that carry the same trademark (company name) and logo
using the same branding, same presentation, and sell the same products but in different locations.
The shops may be owned by one company, or there may be a franchising company that has
franchising agreements with the shop owners often found in relation to restaurant chains.
Various types of retail stores that specialize in the selling of goods related to a theme include
bookstores, boutiques, candy shops, liquor stores, gift shops, hardware stores, hobby stores, pet
stores, pharmacies, sex shops and supermarkets.
Other stores such as big-box stores, hypermarkets, convenience stores, department stores, general
stores, dollar stores sell a wider variety of products not horizontally related to each other.
Home shopping[edit]Main article: Home shopping
Home mail delivery systems and modern technology (such as television, telephones, and the
Internet), in combination with electronic commerce and business-to-consumer electronic commerce
systems, allow consumers to shop from home. There are three main types of home shopping: mail or
telephone ordering from catalogs; telephone ordering in response to advertisements in print and
electronic media (such as periodicals, TV and radio); and online shopping. Online shopping has
completely redefined the way people make their buying decisions; the Internet provides access to a
lot of information about a particular product, which can be looked at, evaluated, and comparison-

5. priced at any given time. Online shopping allows the buyer to save the time and expense, which
would have been spent traveling to the store or mall.
Neighborhood shopping[edit]
Corner stores are common in the United States, and are often called bodegas in Spanish speaking
communities. Sometimes peddlers and ice cream trucks pass through neighborhoods offering goods
and services. Also, garage sales are a common form of second hand resale.
Party shopping[edit]
The party plan is a method of marketing products by hosting a social event, using the event to
display and demonstrate the product or products to those gathered, and then to take orders for the
products before the gathering ends.
Shopping Activity[edit]
Regulation[edit]
Most business have shopping hours, but others are open around the clock. Some nations regulate
the operation of businesses for religious reasons and do not allow shopping on particular days or
dates. These are known as blue laws.
Shopping seasons[edit]
Shopping frenzies are periods of time where a burst of spending occurs, typically near holidays in
the United States, with Christmas shopping being the biggest shopping spending season, starting as
early as October and continuing until after Christmas.
Some religions regard such spending seasons as being against their faith and dismiss the practice.
Many contest the over-commercialization and the response by stores that downplay the shopping
season often cited in the War on Christmas.
The National Retail Federation (NRF) also highlights the importance of back-to-school shopping for
retailers which comes second behind holiday shopping, when buyers often buy clothing and school
supplies for their children.[10] In 2006, Americans spend over $17 billion on their children,
according to a NRF survey.[citation needed]
Pricing and negotiation[edit]
The pricing technique used by most retailers is cost-plus pricing. This involves adding a markup
amount (or percentage) to the retailers' cost. Another common technique is manufacturers
suggested list pricing. This simply involves charging the amount suggested by the manufacturer and
usually printed on the product by the manufacturer.
In Western countries, retail prices are often called psychological prices or odd prices: a little less
than a round number, e.g. $6.95. In Chinese societies, prices are generally either a round number or
sometimes some lucky number. This creates price points.
Often, prices are fixed and price discrimination can lead to a bargaining situation often called
haggling, a negotiation about the price. Economists see this as determining how the transaction's
total economic surplus will be divided between consumers and producers. Neither party has a clear
advantage because the threat of no sale exists, in which case the surplus would vanish for both.
When shopping online, it can be more difficult to negotiate price given that you are not directly
interacting with a sales person. Some consumers use price comparison websites to find the best
price and/or to make a decision about who or where to buy from to save money.

6. "Window shopping"[edit]
"Window shopping" is a term referring to the browsing of goods by a consumer with no intent to
purchase, either as a recreational activity or to plan a later purchase.[11]
Showrooming, the practice of examining merchandise in a traditional brick and mortar retail store
without purchasing it, but then shopping online to find a lower price for the same item, has become
an increasingly prevalent problem for traditional retailers as a result of online competitors, so much
so that some have begun to take measures to combat it.[12]
See also[edit]Personal shopping systemPrice Comparison Service (Internet
Shopping)MarketingRetailingSellingTrade
References[edit]^ Arnold, Mark J.; Kristy E. Reynolds, Nicole Ponderc, Jason E. Lueg (August 2005).
"Customer delight in a retail context: investigating delightful and terrible shopping experiences".
Journal of Business Research 58 (8): 1132"1145. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2004.01.006. Retrieved 3 July
2012. Cite uses deprecated parameters (help)^ Martin, Brett A. S. (2012), "A Stranger"s Touch:
Effects of Accidental Interpersonal Touch on Consumer Evaluations and Shopping Time", Journal of
Consumer Research, 39 (June), 174-184.^ Popcorn, Faith and Hyperion, Lys Marigold (2000)
EVEolution The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women New York. (ISBN 0-79)^ "Roman shopping list
deciphered". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2001-03-05. Archived from the original on 2008-
03-03. Retrieved 2007-09-23. ^ a b c "Material Culture: Getting and Spending". British Library. ^
Peck, Linda, "Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England",
Cambridge Press, 2005^ "Coming to live in a consumer society". ^ Patrick Robertson (2011).
Robertson's Book of Firsts: Who Did What for the First Time. Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved
2013-02-07. ^ "Regency Shopping". ^ Kavilanz, Parija B. (2007-08-09). "Back-to-school sales' mixed
grades". CNNMoney.com (CNN). Retrieved 2008-01-27. ^ "Window Shopping". Urban Dictionary.
Retrieved 18 July 2013. ^ Bhasin, Kim (2013-03-25). "Store Charges Customers $5 'Just Looking'
Fee To Combat Showrooming". Business Insider. |accessdate= requires |url= (help) Wikimedia
Commons has media related to Shopping. Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Shopping.
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