Diminishing varieties of active and creative retail experience: The end of the music shop?

Abstract

In qualitatively defining the spatial attractions of music shops for a group of highly involved and long-term consumers, the elaborated consumption event implies a socially and culturally relevant creative retail process. This takes the form of an immersive interpretation and investigation of aspects of music store space design and merchandise relevant to the exploration and construction of meaningful, personal mythologies in a self-developmental, transactional event whilst being out ‘in-the-world’. Supporting this event were deep levels of product involvement, with inter- and intra-personal communication in a supporting space relating to a set of community values, particularly encoded in 12” vinyl artefacts.