Shopping in a World of Ideas

Shopping, like football, isn't a question of life or death. It's much more important than that. Mark Thorpe argues the case for taking shopping seriously.

Could shopping ever really matter? I mean matter in such a way that people other than commercial researchers, property developers and retail giants themselves bothered to take it seriously? Twenty years ago there would have been little reason to think so. But things have changed. Shopping now matters to a wide range of people, including cultural commentators and academics. But if shopping can (and does) matter as a subject of broader appreciation, debate and study, then what is it that matters about shopping?

From my perspective, really understanding shopping – what people buy, and why and how they buy in the way they do – is one of the most important questions we seek to answer in commercial research. But not just ad hoc, project by project. I want to argue here that shopping matters, because a better understanding of shopping means that we (also) have a better understanding of the social and cultural forces shaping the lives that we (and our respondents) lead. And that‘s one of the things that clients pay us for.

Increasing commercial pressures for ‘insight‘ mean that we have to work ever harder to unlock the smiles (and budgets) of research buyers. But as an industry we don‘t always make best use of the world of ideas available to us. There are numerous ‘pockets‘ of thinking that we could productively draw upon. Here, I‘m going to take you on a guided tour of just some of the myriad ideas within academia, directly or indirectly related to shopping, that could help us to think a little bit smarter and work a bit more effectively.