Ritual Analysis

Urban Outfitters is a popular clothing and accessory store that was founded in 1970, and generates success from the type of merchandise it retails, as well as through the contemporary culture and ethos that it promotes to its customers. The store has stated that it is targeted towards a specific audience that ranges from eighteen to thirty years old, who are well “educated, [and] urban-minded” (“Urban Outfitters”). Urban Outfitters offers a specific shopping experience that is unique to its store, because it focuses on a well-defined audience that is attracted by its modern environment and trendy clothes. Many individuals are unconsciously lured into the store first by the placement of the store itself, then by what the consumer can see in the front windows, and lastly by the specific and well thought out placement of the store’s merchandise. It is evident that the theories regarding retail geography defined by Paco Underhill, including the stores location, the decompression zone, the invariant right, destination items, the

“The Signs of Shopping” by Anne Norton mainly talks about the hidden semiotic meanings behind the concept of shopping. She mentioned how women shopped to obtain a sense of self-identities by spending money to possess property(88). The reading also implies that

“Outlet shopping is perhaps luxury’s greatest ploy to get its goods into the hands of anyone and everyone,” (Thomas, Pg. 246). “But outlet shopping is the antithesis of the flagship, the antithesis in fact, of luxury itself.” (Thomas, 2007. Pg. 247) Columnist Karen Heller explained to Thomas after visiting Woodbury Common Premium Outlets in New York, “The clothes were marked down, picked over and repeatedly pawed, the opposite of how they were originally displayed. Their power to enchant seemed minimized, even at a third the price, smashed together like produce in a storage hold.” Thomas explains how luxury merchandise is purely just that, leftover “luxury” products: overproduction. No longer does luxury embody the experience of pampering nor does it signify class and wealth. Some

Through his piece “Enclosed. Encyclopedic. Endured: the Mall of America.” David Guterson shares his experience of the Mall of America as it opened and its effects of the American culture. From sharing statistics about the amount of jobs available, the number of parking spots, or how much cash is dispersed each week from just the ATMs; Guterson allows readers to feel the massive scale of the mall. He shares stories of the people he met and his own views on the mall, and what it says about America and its people’s values. Guterson makes it clear that Americans have become too absorbed with the thoughts of materialistic belongings; and a mall, such as the Mall of America, only makes those thoughts that much worse and destroys the people’s

When entering a mall of people, I witness different shoppers. I see people that are low class, middle class and high class. I stereotype these people as window shoppers, buyers on a budget and the over buyers by their appearance and the different shopping centers in Kansas City.

In Anne Norton’s, "The Signs of Shopping", Anne Norton, a Political Science Professor at the University of Pennsylvania determines the ways in which malls, catalogs, and home shopping networks create our sense of “identity”. In the first part of her essay, “Shopping at the mall”, Anne analyzes the ways in which malls and catalogs “tell you who you are by selling you what they want.” Anne first states what she believes the mall was created to be; she believes it was created to be an impulsive gathering place and place of centralized public activity. Anne then goes on to state how she believes the mall has come to exploit the lifestyles and identities of people, especially those of young women. Anne makes the claim that the mall appears to be

Shopping is the art of purchasing goods from stores, it's one of my favorite hobbies. The feeling of attaining a new piece of clothing or multiple pieces of clothing gives me a high that no chemical can compare to. However I have come to the realization that it is just not my own on motivation driving me to want to shop but the stores have a way of manipulating their customers to buy more. One of my favorite store growing up would be Hollister Co. my friends and I were patrons of this store. Looking back I think Hollister is the perfect example of how retail stores use special tactics to manipulate their customers. As soon as you walk in into Hollister all your senses are overtaken by their carefully planned tactics to make their customers

Michael’s overall layout and design encourage customers to purchase their products. As you walk into the store, the customer is given some space in order to slow down their walking pace. The cash registers are located to the left, while cheap impulse products are located to the right of the entrance. After customers passed those items, they tended to slow down about a quarter of the way into the store. It was apparent that Michael’s was aware of this trend, because they placed their big ticket merchandise products in the middle of the store. These items were visible to customers as they entered the store, and customers often stopped to examine them. After the big ticket merchandise, customers walked in different directions. Customers

For generations, Americans has been brainwashed by the media to believe that what is displayed on television is the ideal perception of what real beauty have manipulated American citizens of what style looks like. Furthermore, with their many brainwashing strategies, that means more and more consumers spending beyond their budget. Our perspectives have been heavily influenced by what they believe is nice, but can we afford it all? With unrealistic combination of goods in store, plazas, and mall, consuming has become a bad behavior of some. In support of my argument of the “Overspending”, author Gladwell’s article “The Science of Shopping” also argues that stores adjust to fit the needs and wants of the shopper are evidently presented. With that being said, we have no idea when we are being manipulated into unrealistic shopping behavior that is influenced by the way the advertisement is presented in visual sight. Author Gladwell gets a “retail anthropologist” and “urban geographer” named Paco Underhill to give breakdown points of how he helps brand name stores influence consumers into persuasion of buying more. However, most of us fall short of that discipline, while being persuaded to overspend during our store visits.

Living and being an example of the ritual in my everyday life is of my highest priorities. My commitment to this fraternity is unquestionable; I have attended four PIKE University events despite only being a member for a little over a year. I attend these events to better myself, my fraternity, and my community. I know that I can best represent the undergraduate members of our fraternity through the lessons and experiences I gained at PIKE University events. Attendance at these events provides exposure to multiple chapters and the trials and tribulations they face as well as the success stories. I can take their concerns and formulate plans to solve them, all the while using the principles and interest of the International Fraternity as

Option #1 Interpersonal Observations Why do you go to the shopping mall? Contrary to its name, people do not visit the shopping mall only to shop. In fact, there are a plethora of reasons individuals go to a mall which range from the obvious including shopping, to the criminal in the theft of items (Rajagopal, 2009). Some individuals visit a mall solely for the social interaction which occurs.

As we enter a new generation, shoppers are gearing toward online and mobile shopping, which contributes to the extinction of shopping malls. America reached a time period where the number of adults who were born in a time where online shopping was not thought of are retiring; resulting in old habits, such as shopping in malls, coming to a cease. The older generation of adults tend to revert back to familiar habits such as shopping at malls or going to a bookstore. The new generation of adults/teenagers do not use shopping malls as a hangout spot in contrast to older generation, thus leading to the decline of shopping malls. Other than shopping, shopping malls were once used for socializing. However, with the increase of social networks

Seeing things under this light, it is easy to recognize the strong link that exists between ethos, ritual and everyday life. According to Aldo N. Terrin (1999, 153)1,“ritual explains itself because it explains life, creating a feed-back originated with it. [Ritual] is a primum that can not be perceived outside the contexts of daily situations of the real life”, therefore we are able to observe it inside the “fundamental behaviors” of people “within the obvious facts of their life”. According to this theologian, the fact that ritual belong to the world of obviousness, makes very difficult any reading of it. Therefore to consider ritual within the frame of the real life, «should be prior to any interpretive reading». It seems to me that the statement

The purpose of this paper was to observe the consumers of a retail store of my choice; I chose to observe Victoria’s Secret and Targets consumers, because I myself am consumers of those stores quite often, then to analyze the behavior of the consumers of Victoria’s Secret and Target. Victoria’s Secret and Target consumers differ because of the difference in type of retail they offer and sell. Victoria’s Secret consumers know what they are going to be shopping for women and certain needs or wants they are looking to satisfy. Target consumers shop for any age and any gender,

The behavior was observed from a large sample of people. This included twenty people shopping alone and twenty people shopping in a group, for a total of forty subjects, each ranging in ages from approximately 19 to 40 years old. The subjects were observed from the time they entered the store until the time they left. The reasoning behind this was to see the buying behavior differences for the whole experience and figure out which areas of the store could be improved in order to appeal to groups of people shopping. The behaviors observed included the amount of time spent inside the store, the amount of money spent, the interactions with associates, and the areas of the stores that were navigated.