Regina Lee Blaszczyk provides us with a vast amount of
information on department stores and their impact on American culture,
especially during the Victorian period of America. “The vibrant
commercial scene of Victorian cities, with luxury department stores and
old-fashioned specialty shops, opened the doors to the wide, wide
world. Shoppers wandered, browsed, and dreamed.” (p. 90) Reading this
piece, often times I caught myself trying to image these stores,
massive in size and laid out beautifully with an elegant window display
to top it all off. These factors played a large role in the
upper-echelon stores and five-and-ten stores bringing in customers and
being able to sell their business through “window shopping”. Although
we still see these department stores in large cities scattered
throughout the United States, often times we are no longer drawn in by
beautiful window displays and big department stores.
We as Americans have decided that we no longer would like to
spend in our time in a department store, but rather acquire our items
through online shopping. Rather than walking through downtown Cincinnati
and window shopping through the stores, we choose to stay at home, a
beer in one hand and a mouse in the other. Therefore, we no longer have
to drive to downtown Cincinnati and go to Macy’s and pray that they
have your size shirt you desire, you can check online, see if its
available, and even have it shipped to your house the next day if need
be.
Although these beautiful displays in front of stores would
attract customers during this time period, what attracts consumers to
online shopping? Jifeng Luo, Sulin Ba, and Han Zhang found that “When
product uncertainty is high, customer satisfaction is much higher when
the website is well designed…better website design is able to alleviate
the negative influence of product uncertainty.” (p.1140) We, society as
a whole, are less concerned with the beautiful designs that our
department stores once worked so hard to build, but are more concerned
with products being easy to find at the tip of our fingers. American
consumption is no longer driven by beauty, but driven more by how fast
and easy we can find the newest pair of shoes or the next great
technological advancement. Department stores have recognized this, and
created websites that are easy to navigate and are typically fully
equipped with every product that the American consumer could desire.
Stores and malls alike are soon to be a thing of the past with online
shopping only becoming increasingly more popular. It will be interesting
to see what shopping will be like in the next ten to twenty years.
Source:
Blaszczyk, Regina Lee. American Consumer Society, 1865-2005: From Hearth to HDTV. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2009. Print.
Jifeng, Luo, Ba Sulin, and Zhang Han. "The Effectiveness Of Online
Shopping Characteristics And Well-Designed Websites On Satisfaction."
MIS Quarterly 36.4 (2012): 1131-A9. Business Source Complete. Web. 25
Jan. 2013.
--Todd Gottschall
I have to admit that, as an estimation, I would say that at least 75% of my purchases come from online stores and websites; and there are many factors that contribute to those purchases for me as well as numerous other individuals in our society.
ReplyDeleteFirst, with the seemingly endless rise in gasoline prices many of us college students, along with middle income families, and many other distinctions would rather buy that nice new "toy" as a bonus that we saw on the internet rather than spend that money on gas trying to get from the store and back home. A good example of that situation is my Aunt and Uncle. They do all of their shopping, other than for groceries, on the internet because the nearest shopping center to them is over a twenty minute drive. (about 11 miles) They don't want to waste the gas so they make one trip every two weeks out there, and most of the time it is just for food and simple household items.
Second, it seems anymore that to go to a store is a complete nightmare. There are people everywhere; driving, shopping, walking. Here is my typical trip to Wal-Mart: 5-10 minute drive there, an additional 2-3 minutes trying to find a place to park and then walking the half-mile to get into the store from my parking spot. 10-20 minutes getting the movie or game I went there for and getting through the agonizing check-out line, then about 10 minutes from that point to get home. So I just spent a possible hour of my day going to a store hat is less than 2 miles away.....no thanks.
Which leads me to the overall reason, as you've mentioned already Todd, convenience. Convenience is the key. Why waste hours of shopping, going store to store to find maybe just a handful of items that you set out to get that day; when you can do everything like that right from the comfort of home. Not to mention that most of the time the internet site has a greater selection of the various items you may be looking for.
Personally, I love this new way of shopping. Well, its not really all that "new" to me seeing as I'm only 23; but in listening to stories from parents and grandparents I have really come to appreciate technology and what it has done for our lives.
While I agree that shopping online provides consumers in today’s world a great amount of convenience when it comes to making purchases, I believe that going to the store and purchasing desired products has its advantages. Ordering a product over the internet does not give the consumer a chance to inspect the products quality and/or make sure it fits properly (in the case of clothing). I personally do not like the idea of not being able to see or physically touch something I am going to purchase with my hard earned money. There is also a level of inconvenience involved with having to ship back a product that does not fit and/or is defective etc. I also believe that online shopping contributes to a growing trend of laziness. Despite it being less convenient, Americans can benefit physically from actually walking around stores in order to pick out and purchase their items. I am in my thirties and have always taken on an “old school” perspective when it comes to technology and its effect on people’s lives. I don’t think that the heightened level of convenience the internet provides with regards to shopping is necessarily a good thing.
ReplyDelete-John Woehrmeyer
I agree with the idea that online shopping provides for an increased level of convenience. Online shopping has numerous advantages over shopping in a physical store location. Many times a store's internet site will have web promotions that are not available in their actual store and there are usually fewer instances where the desired item is out of stock. Your conclusion sentence was an extremely thought provoking one as I often wonder how consumption will transform over the next few decades. I don't necessarily believe that online shopping will completely phase out shopping at actual store locations as their is a certain level of leisure that people take away from actually shopping for their items. There are also certain items that I don't believe could ever be purchased solely on the internet, automobiles for example. However, I do believe that online shopping will eventually become the leading means in which consumers shop in the next few decades.
ReplyDelete