Abstract
This paper presents the preliminary findings of an empirical study into a specific and novel form of contemporary consumption: “yellow‐sticker shopping.” This type of consumption involves the active targeting for purchase of food products that have been reduced in price because they are approaching their expiry date. Given the complexities of food provisioning in austerity Britain, that include both non‐conventional sites like markets and food banks as well as conventional “discounters” and high street supermarkets, the analysis reveals how this form of food provisioning goes far beyond the “cost‐saving” accounts that might be expected. The research uses autoethnographic material in the form of vignette, constructed around research conducted in the North of England, together with analysis of an online discussion forum. Data are thematically analysed using literature on shopping and supermarkets and then organised according to the three dimensions of social practice: materials, competences and meanings. The paper makes three key contributions in relation to the practice of yellow‐sticker shopping. First, that it has distinct spatial and temporal qualities and the role played by the space of the supermarket and its associated fixtures and technologies is important. Second, that the uncertain supply of yellow‐sticker goods results in unpredictability. Successful shopping is celebrated and characterised in ways other than the drudgery often associated with the weekly shop. Third, it reveals an assemblage of competences, skills and knowledge not only in relation to grocery shopping but that take place in the home, around food, its storage and preparation and cooking and recipe knowledge. The paper concludes by outlining further planned research associated with the practice of yellow‐sticker shopping that will contribute to ongoing study into the alternative modes of food provisioning and their spatialities that are characteristic of life in contemporary Britain.
Highlights
According to Miller (1998), based on work within a UK context, “the most important activity in the experience of shopping, apart from bringing back the items purchased, is saving” (p.49)
Reveals, a suite of consumption competences that are very different to the routine practices that underpin the large weekly food shop: the supply of goods when yellow sticker shopping is uncertain and unpredictable; it cannot be undertaken with a ‘shopping list’ of required items; the temporal qualities of the food are critical as the items may not keep long, contracting the timeframe available to use the product before it spoils; the spaces of display of goods are highly specific and disrupt the familiar spatial organisation of the store; and particular sets of knowledge and understanding are required on the part of the consumer in relation to storage, preparation and use of unplanned and disconnected ingredients
Drawing on theoretical contributions from economic sociology and human geography, alongside data organised according to the analytical constructs of social practice theory, this paper has focused on the practice of yellow sticker shopping as played out in the key site of the supermarket
Summary
According to Miller (1998), based on work within a UK context, “the most important activity in the experience of shopping, apart from bringing back the items purchased, is saving” (p.49) This argument has taken on even greater resonance in recent years due to austerity measures, rising food and fuel costs, growing inequality and precarity. Shoppers populate a socially constructed arena, whose intricate organisation has been framed to facilitate the repeated exchange between retailer and customer This ‘calculative space’ (Callon and Muniesa 2005) is based on a regime of sociotechnical devices that “intervene in the construction of markets” (Muniesa et al, 2007, 2) and help to format prices and products and that orchestrate control mechanisms. Having set out the theoretical basis of the paper, discussion turns to the methods employed
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