Consumption
The sale, purchase, & use of commodities
How does nature of consumption vary geographically?
- Density
- Climate
- Culture
Consumption is a process that includes:
Purchasing, shopping Using, Discarding Recycling, Using Wearing, washing Leisure, Tourism Emotion
Tourism
Form of consumption often tied up with other activities.
Ecotourism, adventure tourism
Shopping is a ____ experience
social
Happiness is linked to the kinds of things that we purchase:
it has been found that more happiness comes from experiential purchases than material purchases
Social Reproduction
The means by which societies reproduce themselves over time.
Roles that consumers play in….??
Consumers as dupes
Consumer sovereignty
Socio-cultural perspective
Consumers as dupes
- we’re all assumed to be passive, corporations control the consumption process. under the influence of ads based on years of psychological research and technology.
- consumption shaped by retailers, marketers
- retail environment important.
Consumer sovereignty
- Assumes that we have full information of these products
- emphasizes agency of free will of consumers (neoclassical economics, liberal individualism)
- price-based decisions
- rational consumers
- consumers exercise informed choice
Sociocultural perspective
Consumers actively construct their own identity through consumption practices
Consumers influenced by corporations but purchase goods selectively and knowingly
Firms both influence and respond to emerging consumption dynamics
Consumption traditionally dominated by… (ADD)
Consumption traditionally dominated by Europe, NA, Japan
- no longer buying things for subsistence.
- when you are in the lower income groups you buy things for subsistence.
Changing Global consumption
- Increase economic power in emerging countries
- new middle class: shift from purchasing basic subsistence goods to ???
Definition of middle by World Bank
earn $10-20 per day, other sources sau $10-100/day
Changing Middle Class - Asia
In 2009 Pacific Asia made up about a third of the global middle class, now 2 thirds.
Implications of consumption shifts toward Asia
- “south - south” trade
- TNC’s view Asian countries as consumer markets
- In China shopping is considered the leading leisure activity
- Debt
- Environmental Destruction
- Less healthy diet
- Product standards
China
-
India
-
Differing consumer needs & preferences
Incomes still lower in emerging economies
Price more important than product
More standardized, low cost products
“fortune at the bottom of the market” Box 15.2
- huge untapped market for global businesses
low income consumers
Fordist era consumption
- large scale, mass consumption
- Limited range of standardized commodities
- Economies of scale - low priced goods
- Production related employment
Post Fordist era consumption
- Fragmented consumption pattern
- Many highly differentiated products
- Niche Marketing
- Aesthetic and symbolic value of goods
- Increased importance of consumption-related employment
CConsumption and identity
- Highly visible symbolic goods –> position in society
- Express individual identity
- Ability to consumer varies
Advertising and marketing (cultures of consumption)
- Changing message (more and more about identity construction)
- Branding
- New media
Big Data
- sell personal data
- capitalism is the drive to extract ever more personal data. So they make people stay on that platform for longer.
- undermines democracy and makes decisions based on that data
