Shopping as Entertainment
When the Bluewater shopping center in Kent advertises itself as 'the most innovative and exciting shopping and leisure destination in Europe today' (Bluewater website) it is reflecting a widespread and highly significant trend. For many contemporary large-scale shopping centers, leisure and entertainment are as important as, and are thoroughly integrated with, their retail activities. The combining of shopping with entertainment has been recognized in the cumbersome term 'shoppertainment' (Lamancusa). Thus the MetroCentre in Gateshead invites its visitors to 'Uncover the world of shoppertainment at the Centre' (MetroCentre website); Sawgrass Mills Mall at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, boasts that it 'features almost 2 miles of "Shoppertainment" (SawgrassMills web site); the Madrid Xanadu center is promoted by its U.S. owners with the slogan 'Shoppertainment heads to Europe' (Madrid Xanadu web site). Indeed, the Mills Corporation, the American developer behind Sawgrass Mills, Madrid Xanadu and many other such enterprises, registered the term 'Shoppertainment' as a trade mark in 2001. The benefits of the 'shoppertainment' approach are clear: it encourages customers and potential customers to come to the mall instead of going somewhere else, to spend longer there, to spend more money there than they might otherwise have done, and to come back again.
So, if 'Creating an entertaining in-store environment that delights and encourages repeat visits and planned spending at each visit is what retail brands and consumer products companies in Europe are increasingly aiming to do' (Stewart-Allen), what does the blending of shopping and entertainment involve? Where do the promoters of 'shoppertainment' believe the entertainment of shopping lies? The phenomenon of shopping as entertainment is not in itself a new thing. During the nineteenth century the new department and chain stores sought to encourage custom by providing for shopping itself to be a pleasurable experience; appealing particularly to bourgeois women, shops capitalized on the attractions and facilities of the urban environment of which they were part, benefited from modern transport networks and technologies such as elevators and electric lighting - which 'served to transform department stores into city centre evening magnets' (Lancaster, p. 51) - and drew in custom with restaurants and other facilities that made shopping a social experience and an entertainment and a leisure activity rather than a chore. In the Victorian era, as Erika Rappaport has written, shopper might have lunch out, take a break for tea, and visit a club, museum, or the theater. Shopping also involved discussing, looking at, touching, buying, and rejecting commodities, especially luxury items such as fashions, furnishings, and other fancy goods. The acquisition of commodities was considered enjoyable, but it was only one of the many pleasures of shopping. (Rappaport, p. 5)
The experiences Rappaport describes - not only buying, but looking at, trying out, comparing and considering commodities remain a central part of the appeal of shopping as an entertainment or leisure pursuit. They are among the characteristics that distinguish 'going shopping' from 'doing the shopping'; it is the former that gives the scope for such recreational activities by being open-ended, pleasurable, and not directed towards the end of provisioning, whereas the latter carries the associations of obligation and routine (Falk and Campbell, p. 102). In the past 'going shopping' has been identified with the high street and, increasingly, the mall, and has been associated with such commodities as clothes, shoes, personal care products, decorative items and consumer goods, while 'doing the shopping' has been associated with supermarkets suggests the necessary purchase of food and drink, washing up liquid, and other such mundane items (Miller, 10-11). One of the characteristics of the modern 'shopping and leisure' destination is the blending of these two types of shopping. The shops available cater for both provisioning and leisure shopping, and visitors are encouraged to combine the two - perhaps 'doing their shopping' at a supermarket within the complex in the morning, then having lunch in a restaurant or the mall's food court before relaxing with 'leisure shopping' in the afternoon. Some supermarkets within such facilities, such as Tesco's at Brent Cross, north of London, even provide special cold rooms for the storage of customers' frozen and chilled purchases, allowing them to spend more time in the mall rather than rushing home to get the shopping into the fridge/freezer.
Modern shopping malls thus consciously aim at attracting customers through offering entertainment as well as shops, commodities, and bargains. This reflects the emphasis on providing an environment conducive to both the act of shopping and to the association of shopping with pleasant, positive, and unchallenging...
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now