The Behaviors Of People Shopping Is Best Buy On Black Friday At The King Of Prussia Mall ( Kop

The socioeconomic significance of malls is seen through visual culture, where the mall has become a place to meet up with friends and family, on any day of the week – weekends being the busiest. Hence “the mall has become a centre of life, where the most memorable moments, holidays and birthdays are spent, dinners are held all under one roof” (Stokrocki 80). In Toronto the two largest malls I explored were the Toronto Eaton’s Centre and Yorkdale Mall – both of which included over 200 stores, eateries, rainforest cafés, and a movie theatre. However what was evident about these two malls apart from the rest included anti social behaviours despite families being grouped together. Although people were together, the sense of togetherness was plastic just like the manikins of store displays. It appeared as though families were shopping just as an excuse to go out as a “family” even though children, teens and adults would disperse into the stores of their choice and meet up at the end for a takeout meal, contacting each other through their phones. In addition to this observation included the fact that families shopping with other families or family friends were more of an exploitation of social and economic class. People being able to spend at stores like Michael Kors, Coach, Tory Burch, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lululemon, Kate Spade and many more, without worrying about going over budget meant being affluent. What really needs to be questioned is the idea that if these people spend at

Andrew Leonard's "Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization" argues that the Black Friday shopping spree has begun to get out of hand in the previous years. Leonard explains that consumerism is a great thing for America, but showing Americans that it is okay to go crazy when shopping for deals is not the way to approach the buying markets. He mentions a Target advertisement and states that, "The Crazy Target Lady is not a joke. Watch her cannibalize her gingerbread man, or strategize her reverse psychology shopping techniques... she is America. She might be a lunatic, but it's a culturally approved lunacy" (Leonard 166). The author emphasizes how Americans embrace the acts of the target lady as funny and amusing, but during Black Friday shopping, some shoppers will take the night to the extreme like the advertisement does. He does remind us that there is light at the end of the tunnel, by reporting how shoppers are seeing the problems with the night of crazy shopping. I agree with Leonard that there are problems with Black Friday ads, and that consumers are realizing Black Friday shopping is taking away from Thanksgiving.

Shopping, a common activity conducted by almost everyone at least once a month, is such a normal subject in our everyday life, one barely puts any thoughts into the potential semiotic explanations behind it. According to the two essays, “The Signs of Shopping” and “The Science of Shopping,” Shopping has significant impacts on one’s self-identification. It is a two way straight, the consumers’ shopping styles can also influence the economic status of the retails businesses.

Black Friday shopping is a controversial issue in the United States; while many believe the day after Thanksgiving is a part of holiday festivities, others view it as destructive. Throughout “Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization,” Andrew Leonard argues that the chaos of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in which crowds of Americans shop all night for extremely low prices, lessens the sophistication of Americans and the true meaning of the holidays. People become so consumed in the idea of endless sale prices that they forget to embrace what they already have, such as family, food, and shelter. He believes that Black Friday shopping has become out of control and describes the negative effects of excessive consumerism. he explains how most consumers act completely insane while Black Friday shopping and how society encourages this behavior by creating commercials and advertisements. Furthermore, Leonard states that it hurts the economy and damages one’s mental health. While Leonard is probably wrong when he claims that Black Friday shopping is completely troublesome to America’s well-being, he is right that consumerism overpowers the true significance of Thanksgiving.

The phenomenon of consumerism is quiet powerful due to the impact on individual’s lives. Society has come to the point, happiness is associated with consumption. However, the way consumerism works, is if the items being purchased gives temporary happiness. There individuals are always buying the latest products to remain happy. In the text, “The Cult you’re in” Kalle Lasn, discusses a cult-like nature of consumer culture on Americans. Lasn uses the work ‘cult’ as a metaphor; he does not mean an actual cult but American consumers seem to be in a cult-like nature. The ideal example of Lasns argument is the text, “The man behind Abercrombie and Fitch”, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, goes in great depth of the life of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, of

The things a person could see if they simply watched Walmart’s customers for even a short amount of time are mind boggling. During a typical, mundane Monday afternoon, I browsed through Walmart 's many aisles not in search of a particular product, but simply observing and studying different aspects of the supermarket. The customer’s behavior, product placement, and employee interactions all stood out to me as interesting. I also took notice of how different consumers interacted with different staff members and vice-versa. As I observed the customers, teachings from my Sociology class immediately started taking form in the real world. While analyzing the different social interactions the people of Walmart were having, I begin to apply different theories, such as the functionalist theory, why these things must happen, the conflict theory, why they are unequal, and symbolic interaction, how they happen. Surprisingly, while watching the average day in Walmart, I found it was hard to ignore my ethnocentric viewpoint, thinking your culture is better than another, to cloud my perspective of why certain interactions were occurring.

A famous writer for the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell has written an article, “The Science of Shopping”, which is based on Paco Underhill’s study of retail anthropology. The intention of a retail store is obvious- that is to attract customers and convince them to perchance as much as they can. There is so much knowledge that we can study, such that how the environment affects people’s thinking. These are tiny details that we don’t usually think about. The reason of how Paco Underhill success is because he notices these details. Details determine success or failure. Paco Undnerhill—a talent and passion environmental psychologist, provides us a new point of view of the science of displaying products,

It is convenient for someone to take barrow to do shopping. But in the situation of 2 or even more people, the barrow will distract the person from shopping who takes care of the barrow. He is restricted or set alone. He has to pay so much attention to the barrow that it may reduce the enthusiasm of shopping. However the shopping basket will not affect so much.

Quindlen starts her essay by stating that at a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, New York, a worker was trampled to death by a horde of excited shoppers during Black Friday; the day after Thanksgiving when stores hold massive sales for the holiday season (Par. 2). She then goes on to talk about credit card debt and gives various examples of people buying different versions of items they

Shopping has become a daily activity which happens a billion times in America and around the world. We cannot imagine how our lives would be affected if shopping was suddenly stopped. Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Norton both write articles about two sides of modern day shopping: how consumers have impacted the retail industry and how the industry influences consumers. In the article " The Science of Shopping," Malcolm Gladwell, a well-known writer and journalist, analyzes the shopping behaviors of customers and how retailers can lure customers; while Anne Norton, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, in

Historically, the department store affected every facet of social and economic life in America. The rise of the department store from the mid-1850s to the end of the 19th century was a major revolution for business and society. It revolutionized the shopping experience and created an entirely new view of ordinary retail stores. Endless categories of items from jewelry and accessories to home goods and furniture were available to all customers under one roof. Department stores found success in the early years, because they were selling more than just “products.” They were selling an entire experience to the American consumer. Known for their low prices, convenience, experience, and variety, department stores emerged as the iconic establishments of their time. These stores became mainstream institutions in downtown areas. Some department stores, such as Filene’s, even had restaurants and tearooms located inside the building. They had services like photo studios and special events like fashion shows and parades. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is still a widely popular event today, originating in

Christmas, which is on 25th December every year, is a religious event that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ but it becomes a holiday in many countries, especially western countries where their mainstream religion is Christian. People celebrate Christmas with many traditional rituals, they purchase decorations for houses, gifts giving and have the Christmas dinner with family and friends but the rituals may vary from different countries. Additionally, Christmas is a high consumption season due to the gifts giving culture of traditional activities in western culture and also consumers are offered discounts during the occasion in which Christmas creates ‘the consumption fantasyland’. ‘Consumption satisfices our basic survival needs and the more abstract needs of cultural, social and personal elements that are symbolic of taste, lifestyles and identity’ (Clarke, 2007: 3). This essay will discuss two perspectives, which are classical and cultural perspectives, separately through celebrations that drive consumer behavior before, during Christmas and then in the next section we will discuss about how the market creates and reinforces the fantasyland by the marketing communications for Christmas.

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.

Rural>City>Cyberspace by Nicholas Carr and Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization are two essays written to show how modern times are changing our behavior. They both claim that we are losing some of our humanity. Although both passages seem to have a similar main idea they have many differences. Rural>City>Cyberspace and Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization have different purposes, patterns, and are directed towards different audiences. Rural>City>Cyberspace’s purpose was to show its readers the effects technology is having on our brains.

The purpose of this research is to examine consumer behavior on Black Friday. Black Friday is typically the busiest shopping day of the year, and it is all driven by the chance for consumers to save the most amount of money possible while getting their holiday shopping done. Research was done online, and also through personal experiences. By understanding what retailers and consumers hope to accomplish on this day can have a positive impact on everyone. Consumers are able to get what they want with the least amount of turmoil, and retailers are able to turn a profit. This research can be most helpful to merchants, as it will help them to understand what a consumer