Street Retail Research Articles

What makes consumers buy from the informal rather than formal retail market? A consumption value perspective

Purpose This paper aims to understand consumption values buying from informal retail markets (i.e., street vendor retailing). It also explores why consumers prefer daily necessary goods from the informal compared to the formal retail market (such as supermarkets, retail chain outlets and e-commerce). Design/methodology/approach Employing the qualitative research approach, this study collected data from nine respondents in two areas in Malaysia. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using the thematic analysis technique. Only representative verbatim codes were presented under five themes of consumption value theory. Findings Consumers are triggered by the convenience, ease, and exclusive products (conditional value), friendly and known relationship with informal sellers, as well as the availability of some particular food items (emotional value) and lower price and freshness of groceries (functional value) while buying from informal compared to formal retail vendor. Research limitations/implications This study provides knowledge implications to the consumption value theory. Functional, emotional, and conditional values are the dominant components of purchase behaviour in informal compared to formal retail channels. Social values are common, whereas epistemic value is more substantial in formal retailing. Practical implications Findings are helpful for informal retail businesses to understand consumers' buying behaviour. Informal retail owners should ensure that commodities are fresh, highly affordable and available in the local communities. Building a friendly relationship with consumers would be a key to the success of this retail sector. Social implications Authorities should support informal sellers to set up mobile retail stores in residential areas. This effort would offer greater convenience to both parties in informal businesses and ensure informal sellers' financial and social well-being. Originality/value Despite the widespread acceptance of buying goods from informal retail vendors, research on consumption value in informal retailing is largely overlooked. Previous research primarily deals with formal market phenomena due to their size and economic contribution. Consequently, current literature lacks an understanding of why consumers prefer to buy from informal retail vendors for their daily groceries when the formal retail channel could fulfil similar needs. Using a qualitative research design, this research uncovers consumers' buying motives from informal compared to formal vendors.

Booksellers as placemakers: Innovative roles of independent booksellers in high street retailing

High street vitality and viability has been a long-standing topic in UK research and policy debates. While the presence and role of the independent retailer is discussed in the associated academic literature, specific consideration of independent bookstores has been lacking, given their perceived position as a special type of retailer within the high street ecosystem. There is, to date, very limited knowledge regarding booksellers’ contributions to high street vitality and viability. We explore the role(s) of booksellers by demonstrating how they can help drive the vitality and viability of their high streets in the UK and Ireland – identifying booksellers as social entrepreneurs, value co-creators, multifunctional initiators and speciality anchors. As such, their placemaking activities extend far beyond retailing. We argue that by assuming such innovative roles, placemaking efforts undertaken by booksellers can catalyse town centre transformation and contribute to revitalisation.

High street banking on the app: branding strategies of traditionally-driven neobanks

PurposeSeveral high street retail banks are extending their brands into digital banking through fully digital, app-only neobanks, which have been described as traditionally-driven neobanks (TDNBs). These TDNBs are considered a form of brand extension, representing the increased complexity of branding banks and financial institutions. This study explicitly addresses the branding strategies employed by TDNBs.Design/methodology/approachThis study has adopted a case study research design, using a multi-stage data collection strategy. Initially, interviews were conducted with bank managers, followed by interviews with customers. Later, user-generated content was extracted through verified reviews from the app store. Subsequently, these three strands of data were thematically analysed and triangulated, in order to gain a holistic understanding of the branding strategies used by TDNBs.FindingsThree key themes emerged regarding the branding strategies of the TDNBs: aligning with the parent brand, reinforcing the digital experience, and enhancing the brand image.Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributed to the growing body of research on marketing, branding, and digital transformation of bank services. As more traditional banks are exploring opportunities to pivot and explore other fintech options, this study offers significant insights that will help in managing brand experience and promotion across customer journeys in the banking sector.Practical implicationsThis study contributes to the growing body of research on marketing, branding, and digital transformation of bank services. Even as more traditional banks explore opportunities to pivot as well as other fintech options, this study offers significant insights to help manage brand experience and promotion across customer journeys in the banking sector.Originality/valueWhile previous studies on banking and financial services have concentrated on traditional retail and high street banks, there is a need for a greater understanding of the brand positioning of digital banks, especially those created by traditional banks.

High street retail environment interventions and their theorised impacts on health and wellbeing: A scoping review.

Health outcomes are influenced by social and environmental determinants of health. As places where people work, live, meet and consume, high street retail environments are influential in shaping health. In recent decades, high streets have been in decline, prompting policies to revitalise retail environments and support local businesses, particularly in European and North American countries. The aim of this scoping review was to systematically map evidence on retail environment interventions, to gain a deeper understanding of the current evidence base assessing their possible health and wellbeing impacts. The objectives were to identify different types of interventions and the outcomes they address; and the mechanism through which interventions are theorised to influence health and equity. Peer-reviewed studies were identified through academic databases (MEDLINE, Embase, EconLit, Web of Science and Social Policy and Practice) using relevant search terms. Additional (grey) literature was identified using citation scanning and online searches. Studies were eligible if they evaluated interventions with a significant focus on supporting the retail environment, reported on at least one health and wellbeing outcome and were written in English. Relevant data were extracted and presented descriptively. An interpretive approach was taken to analyse theories of change. The searches identified 53 peer-reviewed studies and nine grey literature reports. Interventions were categorised as follows: area-based initiatives, business improvement districts, business incentives, and demand-side incentives. Studies predominantly evaluated impacts on social and environmental determinants of health. Some studies measured impacts on self-rated (mental) health, physical activity and food consumption and purchasing. Studies reported evidence of both improved and worsening outcomes. Theories of change were often under-specified and reductionist, lacking a clear understanding of the complex systems in which interventions take place. Future interventions could benefit from more comprehensive theories of change that meaningfully integrate economic, and health and wellbeing outcomes. This requires intersectoral collaboration.

Assessing the value of integrating national longitudinal shopping data into respiratory disease forecasting models

The COVID-19 pandemic led to unparalleled pressure on healthcare services. Improved healthcare planning in relation to diseases affecting the respiratory system has consequently become a key concern. We investigated the value of integrating sales of non-prescription medications commonly bought for managing respiratory symptoms, to improve forecasting of weekly registered deaths from respiratory disease at local levels across England, by using over 2 billion transactions logged by a UK high street retailer from March 2016 to March 2020. We report the results from the novel AI (Artificial Intelligence) explainability variable importance tool Model Class Reliance implemented on the PADRUS model (Prediction of Amount of Deaths by Respiratory disease Using Sales). PADRUS is a machine learning model optimised to predict registered deaths from respiratory disease in 314 local authority areas across England through the integration of shopping sales data and focused on purchases of non-prescription medications. We found strong evidence that models incorporating sales data significantly out-perform other models that solely use variables traditionally associated with respiratory disease (e.g. sociodemographics and weather data). Accuracy gains are highest (increases in R2 (coefficient of determination) between 0.09 to 0.11) in periods of maximum risk to the general public. Results demonstrate the potential to utilise sales data to monitor population health with information at a high level of geographic granularity.

Seasonal purchase of antihistamines and ovarian cancer risk in the Cancer Loyalty Card Study (CLOCS): results from an observational case-control study

Introduction & BackgroundAntihistamine use has been associated with a reduction in ovarian cancer incidence. Herein, we investigate antihistamine exposure in relation to ovarian cancer risk using a novel data resource by examining purchase histories from retailer loyalty card data.
 Objectives & ApproachParticipants from the Cancer Loyalty Card Study (CLOCS) included ovarian cancer patients (cases, n=153) and women without a diagnosis of ovarian cancer (controls, n=120). Up to 6 years of purchase history was retrieved from two participating high street retailers from 2014-2022. Logistic regression was used to estimate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals for ovarian cancer associated with antihistamine purchases, adjusting for confounders. The association was stratified by season of purchase, age, histology, and family history.
 Relevance to Digital FootprintsThis study is one of the first to utilise transaction data from high street retailers to investigate associations with cancer risk, based on what participants are buying.
 ResultsEver purchasing antihistamines was not significantly associated with ovarian cancer overall in this small study (OR=0.68 (0.39-1.19)). However, antihistamine purchases were significantly associated with reduced ovarian cancer risk when purchased only in spring and/or summer (OR=0.37 (0.17-0.82)) and in non-serous ovarian cancer (OR=0.41 (0.18-0.93)) in stratified analyses.
 Conclusions & ImplicationsAntihistamine purchase is associated with reduced ovarian cancer risk when purchased seasonally. However, larger studies are required to understand the mechanisms of reduced ovarian cancer risk related to seasonal purchases of antihistamines and allergies.

Brand positioning strategies and their effectiveness: A case of high street fashion retail brands in Pakistan

Brand positioning has been acknowledged by practitioners and academics to be an important element of brand management. Firstly, this study aims to investigate the relationship between three brand positioning strategies (benefit brand positioning strategy, feature brand positioning strategy and surrogate brand positioning strategy) and joint effect of the five dimensions of brand positioning effectiveness, namely, favourability, dissimilarity, uniqueness, credibility, and sustainability. Secondly, this study investigates the separate relationship between the three brand positioning strategies and the five dimensions of brand positioning effectiveness in the case of high street fashion apparel retail brands. To empirically test the proposed framework adapted measurement scales were used. Data from 607 young consumers in Pakistan were collected. Empirical findings confirm that benefit brand positioning strategy and surrogate brand positioning strategy have a greater effect on brand positioning effectiveness. However, a significant positive relationship was found between all three brand positioning strategies and brand positioning effectiveness. These findings also indicate varied yet insightful relationships between brand positioning strategies and five dimensions of brand positioning effectiveness. Marketers can benefit from these findings as a means to understand brand positioning strategies from a consumers’ perspective thereby making use of these results in articulating branding strategies as a way to generate and communicate a distinctive competitive perception for their brands.

Challenges and Changes to the Product Development Process for Fashion Omnichannel Retailers

This paper focuses on the relatively limited research activity for Fashion Product Development (FPD). This work aims to challenge the traditional FPD theoretical process model within existing academic literature and presents a revised version which is underpinned by the concept of “robust management” derived from the New Product Development (NPD) literature and industry discussion. This new theoretical process model is a more accurate reflection of current practice within the fashion industry. The development of this research is influenced by critically investigating the product development process used by high street omnichannel retailers that develop “own label” fashion clothing, and which distribute products through high street stores and online sales channels as well as having integrated or overlapping service domains. The research examines the process inputs and outputs as well as the planning and management of the process overall and in so doing intends to capture the holistic nature of current industry FPD for omnichannel retailers. The empirical research proceeded using a qualitative approach using semi structured indepth interviews conducted with key informants from market leading retailers. The major findings of the research indicate that a new theoretical contribution to the academic literature field of FPD may be appropriate. The work illustrates the current product development process, documenting the challenges, changes and solutions that have influenced it, specific to omnichannel retailers, whilst identifying the links and parallels from NPD process model structures. This research explores the necessity of product development theoretical models that are specific to business and retail types within the fashion industry and contributes to the nascent theory that has a specific focus on fashion product development.

Cancer Loyalty Card Study (CLOCS): feasibility outcomes for an observational case–control study focusing on the patient interval in ovarian cancer

ObjectivesOvarian cancer symptoms are often non-specific and can be normalised before patients seek medical help. The Cancer Loyalty Card Study investigated self-management behaviours of patients with ovarian cancer prior to...

Epidemiological investigation of norovirus infections in Punjab, Pakistan, through the One Health approach.

Norovirus, mainly associated with acute gastroenteritis, is very contagious and can affect a vast range of species ranging from cattle, pigs, dogs, mice, cats, sheep, and lions to humans. It is a foodborne pathogen that mainly transmits through the fecal-oral route. This is the first-ever study conducted in Lahore and Sheikhupura districts of Punjab, Pakistan, to investigate noroviruses through the One Health approach. From January 2020 to September 2021, 200 fecal samples were collected from clinical cases of hospitalized patients and 200 fecal samples from sick animals at veterinary hospitals and local farms. In addition, 500 food and beverage samples were collected from street vendors and retail stores. A predesigned questionnaire was used to assess the risk factors and clinical characteristics of sick people and animals. Overall, 14% of the human clinical samples were positive by RT-PCR for genogroup GII. All bovine samples were negative. Food and beverage samples were tested in pools, resulting in sugarcane juice samples positive for genogroup GII. Previous contact with acute gastroenteritis patients, sex, and presence of vomiting were found to be significant risk factors (p ≤ 0.05). The substantial number of diarrhea cases associated with noroviruses calls for additional studies to investigate the epidemiology and transmission and to improve surveillance.

Association Between Purchase of Over-the-Counter Medications and Ovarian Cancer Diagnosis in the Cancer Loyalty Card Study (CLOCS): Observational Case-Control Study.

Over-the-counter (OTC) medications are frequently used to self-care for nonspecific ovarian cancer symptoms prior to diagnosis. Monitoring such purchases may provide an opportunity for earlier diagnosis. The aim of the Cancer Loyalty Card Study (CLOCS) was to investigate purchases of OTC pain and indigestion medications prior to ovarian cancer diagnosis in women with and without ovarian cancer in the United Kingdom using loyalty card data. An observational case-control study was performed comparing purchases of OTC pain and indigestion medications prior to diagnosis in women with (n=153) and without (n=120) ovarian cancer using loyalty card data from two UK-based high street retailers. Monthly purchases of pain and indigestion medications for cases and controls were compared using the Fisher exact test, conditional logistic regression, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Pain and indigestion medication purchases were increased among cases 8 months before diagnosis, with maximum discrimination between cases and controls 8 months before diagnosis (Fisher exact odds ratio [OR] 2.9, 95% CI 2.1-4.1). An increase in indigestion medication purchases was detected up to 9 months before diagnosis (adjusted conditional logistic regression OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.04-1.83). The ROC analysis for indigestion medication purchases showed a maximum area under the curve (AUC) at 13 months before diagnosis (AUC=0.65, 95% CI 0.57-0.73), which further improved when stratified to late-stage ovarian cancer (AUC=0.68, 95% CI 0.59-0.78). There is a difference in purchases of pain and indigestion medications among women with and without ovarian cancer up to 8 months before diagnosis. Facilitating earlier presentation among those who self-care for symptoms using this novel data source could improve ovarian cancer patients' options for treatment and improve survival. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03994653; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03994653.

ТЕНДЕНЦИИ РАЗВИТИЯ РЫНКА ТРУДА В ТОРГОВЛЕ

Modern trade is an important sector of the Russian economy, creating a significant part of the gross value added. Trade infrastructure and its subjects play a significant role in ensuring employment of the population of the Russian Federation. The number of people employed in wholesale and retail trade is increasing annually, at the same time, there is a tendency to decrease the share of people employed in the field of trade, due to an increase in the share of online trade, which has a lower labor intensity. The analysis of the structure of employees in the trade industry in 2021 in the Russian Federation by the level of education reflects a high proportion of workers with higher education, secondary vocational education and secondary general education. However, the growth of both the absolute and relative number of people employed in trade is not balanced with the dynamics of the output of qualified specialists in this field. In 2023, experts note a shortage of trade and operational personnel, which in the future will affect the level of line managers and top management of trading companies. The processes of consolidation and competition between the two leaders of the Russian market are continuing in the trade industry: the holding company, which includes the retail chains Magnit and Dixie, and the holding X5 Group, non-network trade formats are developing as a tool for promoting goods for small and medium-sized businesses. Street retail is being revived with small retail formats with an emphasis on everyday demand. There is an annual increase in the share of eCommerce. The introduction of artificial intelligence technologies into the activities of trading enterprises will reduce the costs of circulation, which will positively affect the prices of goods and stimulate consumer demand. The impact of scientific and technological progress, globalization processes, and the COVID-19 pandemic on trade has led to the need to modernize the labor market and the vocational education system. In order to reduce the personnel deficit and increase the level of professional training and retraining of trade workers, it is advisable to combine the efforts of large retail companies and educational institutions on the basis of a public-private partnership mechanism.

Unfolding touristification in retail landscapes: Evidence from rent gaps on high street retail

Touristification is an emerging concept used to enable the understanding of how various stakeholders interfere and transform a neighbourhood through tourist activities. This study develops a touristification rent gap theory to examine how an influx of tourists causes an increase in retail rents. We hypothesise that ceteris paribus, a higher tourist-concentrated area, will have higher demands for tourist-specific goods and services that increase retail rent gaps. To test the hypothesis, we conduct both time series and cross-sectional data analyses. The time series analysis confirms a strong association between tourists’ spending and retail rents. In the cross-sectional analysis, we use a neighbourhood clustering method to endogenise the demarcation of retail habitats. The result suggests that touristification is not merely a subset of gentrification and that the two phenomena should be investigated as distinct but simultaneous processes. The finding also reveals that areas with more tourists will make the retail rent gaps of small shops higher. Destination management should be aware of significant touristification effects that threaten the original retail markets of local neighbourhoods.

Testing the Effectiveness of an Animated Decision Aid to Improve Recruitment of Control Participants in a Case-Control Study: Web-Based Experiment.

BackgroundParticipation in case-control studies is crucial in epidemiological research. The self-sampling bias, low response rate, and poor recruitment of population representative controls are often reported as limitations of case-control studies with limited strategies to improve participation. With greater use of web-based methods in health research, there is a further need to understand the effectiveness of different tools to enhance informed decision-making and willingness to take part in research.ObjectiveThis study tests whether the inclusion of an animated decision aid in the recruitment page of a study website can increase participants’ intentions to volunteer as controls.MethodsA total of 1425 women were included in a web-based experiment and randomized to one of two experimental conditions: one in which they were exposed to a simulated website that included the animation (animation; n=693, 48.6%), and one in which they were exposed to the simulated website without the animation (control; n=732, 51.4%). The simulated website was adapted from a real website for a case-control study, which invites people to consider taking part in a study that investigates differences in purchasing behaviors between women with and without ovarian cancer and share their loyalty card data collected through 2 high street retailers with the researchers. After exposure to the experimental manipulation, participants were asked to state (1) their intention to take part in the case-control study, (2) whether they would be willing to share their loyalty card for research, and (3) their willingness to be redirected to the real website after completing the survey. Data were assessed using ordinal and binary logistic regression, reported in percentages (%), adjusted odds ratio (AOR), and 95% confidence intervals.ResultsIncluding the animation in the simulated website did not increase intentions to participate in the study (AOR 1.09; 95% CI 0.88-1.35) or willingness to visit the real study website after the survey (control 50.5% vs animation 52.6%, AOR 1.08; 95% CI 0.85-1.37). The animation, however, increased the participants’ intentions to share the data from their loyalty cards for research in general (control 17.9% vs animation 26%; AOR 1.64; 95% CI 1.23-2.18).ConclusionsWhile the results of this study indicate that the animated decision aid did not lead to greater intention to take part in our web-based case-control study, they show that they can be effective in increasing people’s willingness to share sensitive data for health research.

Examining the nexus between food retailers certification and its impacts

PurposeThe authors assessed the certification of street food retailers in Ghana in terms of awareness, training, willingness to be certified, determinants, agreement with certification requirements and impacts on performance.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data was sourced from 200 street food retailers. Descriptive statistics, Likert scale, mean comparison test, heteroskedastic probit, inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA), inverse probability weights (IPW) and augmented inverse-probability weighting (AIPW) were applied.FindingsMost uncertified retailers were willing to be certified. Awareness about certification was high. Most of the certified retailers had been trained on certification, while most uncertified retailers had not been trained. Being a female, being educated, being a migrant vendor, possessing experience in retailing, training in certification, trust in the local certification process, the amount spent in preparing food and the number of customers are crucial variables that increase the probability of being certified among street food vendors. Street food retailers agreed to all the requirements for certification. Certification boosts the performance of street food retailers in terms of the number of customers and contracts received. Training on certification is recommended for street food retailers.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of this study is mainly due to the type of food retailers selected. Street food vending in Ghana is done among those who cook food for selling, those who sell processed products such as drinks and those who sell vegetables and other uncooked agriproducts. Meanwhile, the authors selected unorganised retailers who primarily cook local and regional dishes for sale in this study. Thus, the study did not include organised food retailers such as restaurants. Therefore, generalising the study results for street food vendors should be made with caution.Originality/valueSeveral studies have been conducted on street food retailing across the globe on knowledge of food-safety practices, risk practices, bacterial contamination of street retailing food, toxicological hazards of street foods and compliance with technical and hygienic requirements by street food retailers, among others. However, empirical studies on the certification/licensing of street food retailers and its impact have been given little attention. As a result, this study investigates the certification of street food retailers and its impacts on retailers' performance in Ghana.

Property use diversity and spatial accessibility within urban retailing centres: drivers of retail rents

ABSTRACT This study investigates the relationship between use and investor diversity, spatial accessibility, and high street retail rents. Spatial quantitative analysis of the high street retail sector remains an underdeveloped area so this paper seeks to bridge this gap and contribute to the debate on the adaptability of urban retailing centres by adopting a spatial fixed-effects panel modelling approach. The empirical findings reveal that diversity and richness in property use tend to have a significant positive impact on retail rental values. The influence of ownership richness on rents is positive implying that rents tend to be higher on streets where there is a greater range in the type of landlords. Walkability, as a measure of spatial accessibility, is found to have a negative relationship with market rents. This is perhaps surprising as it had been expected that the most walkable streets in retailing centres to be the most connected and have the highest rents. This contrary finding may be due to large developments interrupting the street network and restricting the choice and movement of pedestrians. Location on the prime retail pitch has a significant positive relationship with shop rents, whereas proximity to transportation nodes has a less consistent influence.

A New Form of Beauty: Irish Postpunk and the Liberalization of Ireland, 1977–1991

A New Form of Beauty: Irish Postpunk and the Liberalization of Ireland, 1977–1991 Kenneth L. Shonk (bio) the dark space festival was held on February 16–17, 1979, at the Project Arts Centre in the Temple Bar section of central Dublin.1 The multimedia event featured film, artwork, a striptease act, and live performances from a number of musical groups that eschewed tropes of rock and punk in favor of a new sound and aesthetic.2 The festival was to be headlined by John Lydon’s post–Sex Pistols group PiL (Public Image Limited) and English avant-garde troupe Throbbing Gristle. For reasons unknown the featured acts never made it to Ireland for the event. Nonetheless, Irish bands were able to fill in for the missing headliners, and those that did perform included the Virgin Prunes, the Modern Heirs, Berlin, the Atrix, Phantom Orchestra, Rocky de Valera and the Gravediggers, U2, and the New Versions.3 Noted British DJ John Peel was in attendance, and his presence—according to Irish Times journalist Joe Breen—may have “prompted the energetic performances [of the bands] and it is reasonable to assume he was [End Page 81] accordingly impressed.”4 Days before the event, festival organizer and center director Jim Sheridan said, “We think of it as a lovely hippy concept. . . . We think it’s gonna be total bleedin’ anarchy.”5 The event also included food. Tickets for the festival were £6—later reduced to £4 after the headliners dropped out— and could be purchased at various sites in Dublin, including upscale Grafton Street retailer Brown Thomas. Film, art, and food aside, the significance of this festival lay in the coalescing of groups central to a burgeoning Irish postpunk scene, where bands played a style of music that was a “particular kind of art rock” performed by “bohemian non-conformists” who wrote songs that “grappled with classic existentialist quandaries: the struggle and agony of having a ‘self’; love versus isolation; the absurdity of existence; the human capacity for perversity and spite; the perennial ‘suicide, why the hell not?’”6 More than a collection of transgressive and loud “new wave,” the Dark Space Festival was a moment of anarchic liberalization of Ireland—an early marker of a willingness by some in Ireland to shrug off the nation’s “culture of containment.” The Dark Space Festival marked a key watershed in not only the history of Irish popular music but also in Ireland’s social and cultural liberalization. That a youthful musical avant-garde was on display for a mere £4 speaks to an emergent and accessible space for a new musical aesthetic. The moment was not finite, however, as some of the bands that played the Dark Space Festival were featured in A Sense of Ireland, a government-sponsored showcase of Irishness where the cutting edge was situated alongside traditional arts. In short order, this localized music scene was elevated to a position where transgressive youth were part of the outward-facing Irish visage, marking a structural acceptance and promotion of countercultural alterity. The existence of an Irish variant of postpunk parallel to “scenes” in England and the United States presents an opportunity to examine a cultural moment when Irish musicians offered an explicit and thoughtful reaction to contemporary Ireland. The aesthetic of these bands—such as those featured at the Dark Space Festival and in A Sense of Ireland—conveyed a visual and aural transgression that was intent on identifying and rejecting the conservative elements [End Page 82] of Ireland’s culture of containment, in turn marking a particular moment in our growing understanding of Ireland’s transformation from “one of the most conservative places in Europe” to its “more socially liberal” status.7 The Dark Space Festival—and Irish postpunk writ large—shares some lineage with other Irish cultural watersheds, for it existed because of intrinsic and extrinsic forces rooted in Ireland’s history. Societal and demographic shifts in the 1960s and 1970s helped foster and define the Irish postpunk moment, and its form and function were undoubtedly Irish but not beholden to traditional Gaelic cultural tropes: there were little to no flourishes of Celtic themes or instrumentation, nor were there...

Cheap Street: London’s Street Markets and the Cultures of Informality, c.1850-1939, by Victoria Kelley

Reviewed by: Cheap Street: London’s Street Markets and the Cultures of Informality, c. 1850–1939 by Victoria Kelley Judith R. Walkowitz (bio) Cheap Street: London’s Street Markets and the Cultures of Informality, c. 1850–1939, by Victoria Kelley; pp. xiv + 224. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019, $118.00. In Cheap Street: London’s Street Markets and the Cultures of Informality, c.1850–1939, a well-written and richly illustrated book on London street markets, Victoria Kelley challenges conventional narratives of Victorian street markets as imaginative and material relics of the past. She points to major surveys on poverty, from Henry Mayhew to Charles Booth to the New London Survey of the 1930s, which successively documented the vast expansion of street markets in the metropolis between the 1850s until the onset of the Second World War. Throughout this period, market stalls were essential food distribution spaces for London’s poor. Market sellers continued to purvey the basic staples of fruits, vegetables, and fish that were available in the 1850s, although a distinctive minority of stalls diversified into nonperishables, thus offering poor Londoners access to the cheap luxuries commodity market. The fact that these barely regulated sites of exchange proliferated amid the brick-and-mortar retail revolution of the Victorian era is just one of many historical dialectics identified by Kelley. Following the lead of cultural theorists and historians, Kelley shows how street markets occupied space on the ground in defiance of urban planning and developed in tandem with a rationalized urban economy. She also establishes the cultural impact of the markets, tracing printed descriptions and music hall performances that ultimately configured the street trader as the quintessential “Cockney,” a small entrepreneur who resisted authority but remained committed to mutual support and self-regulation (133). Thanks to powerful stage renditions, along with what Kelley calls “popular memory,” market people and their performances helped to frame how certain plebeian Londoners saw themselves (139). The first chapter offers a “narrative history” (12) of the street market’s “informal economy” (9). While metropolitan inspectors kept a sharp eye on authorized food markets engaged in wholesale trade and occupying off-street premises, municipal authorities virtually ignored street retail trading to the poor. As a result, street market traders might be subject to sporadic policing, as established in the Metropolitan (Streets) Act of 1867, but they paid no rent and enjoyed a steady yet fragile tenure on urban space. The disregard of municipal authorities ended in 1927, when street markets became subject to a licensing system that concentrated on space, time, and activity (meaning the type of commodity for sale). Even so, most of the informal conventions of the street markets continued until wartime conditions disrupted them. Subsequent chapters of the book are ordered thematically and devoted to “Things,” “Streets,” and “People.” In these sections, Kelley gives some attention to diachronic shifts in the commodities purveyed, the increasing Jewish presence in the East End markets, the growing reputation of the street markets as tourist attractions, and the cultural popularity of market types in music hall performances. Overall, however, her emphasis is less on differences over time or between markets than on enduring patterns and configurations. Kelley’s astute discussion of the architecture of market street represents her most original contribution to the history of the street market. Exploiting her skills as a design historian, she outlines the “fragile architecture” constructed out of the street’s barrows and stalls (95). Even though the street market was transient, appearing and disappearing from day to day, with no permanent facilities, the double line of barrows assembled [End Page 451] along the street afforded a cumulative sense of enclosure and “filled a customer’s field of vision” (97). This fragile architecture shaped the bodily experience of visitors. Visual representations of the markets predominantly reproduce the perspective of shoppers immersed amid crowds and stalls. Compared to the “scopophilic effects” of the shopping emporia of the West End, with their bright lights and shining glass, a visit to the market represented a multi-sensory experience of sounds, smells, and sights (103). As Kelley notes, Cheap Street is the first book-length scholarly study of London’s modern street markets. It builds...

It\u2019s the Weather: Quantifying the Impact of Weather on Retail Sales

The weather is considered as an influential factor on consumer purchasing behaviours and plays a significant role in many aspects of retail sector decision making. As a result, better understanding of the magnitude and nature of the influence of variable UK weather conditions can be beneficial to many retailers and other stakeholders. This study addresses the dearth of research in this area by quantifying the relationship between different weather conditions and trading outcomes. By employing comprehensive daily sales data for a major high street retailer with over 2000 stores across England and adopting a random forest methodology, the study quantifies the influence of various weather conditions on daily retail sales. Results indicate that weather impact is greatest in the summer and spring months and that wind is consistently found to be the most influential weather condition. The top five most weather-dependent categories cover a range of different product types, with health foods emerging as the most susceptible to the weather. Also, sales from out-of-town stores show a far more complex relationship with the weather than those from traditional high street stores with the regions London and the South East experiencing the greatest levels of influence. Various implications of these findings for retail stakeholders are discussed and the scope for further research outlined.

Understanding Urban Retail Vacancy

Storefront retail is highly valued because of its contribution to street life, its pedestrian-oriented urban design quality, and its ability to foster social connection. Despite this valuation, in many areas, main street retail struggles and storefront vacancies are common. To better understand retail vacancy causes, effects, and mitigation, we conducted 18 in-depth (in-person or phone) interviews of the leaders of business organizations in Chicago. From the literature, common explanations for retail vacancy include structural transformation of the retail industry, demographic change, and the increased cost of being a retailer. Responses from our interviewees cited demographic change, urban context, and property owner behavior as the main reasons for retail vacancy. While there was significant overlap with the literature concerning the role of demographic change, our respondents put particular emphasis on contexts and behaviors witnessed at the “street level,” such as property owner behavior.