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3 - Going Shopping

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2022

Michael Kwass
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University, Maryland
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Summary

This chapter examines the marketing of consumer goods. Shops proliferated in the eighteenth century, as did the ranks of peddlers, smugglers, and street sellers. While most shops sold basic goods over rough-hewn counters or through open street-windows, many luxury and semiluxury shops adopted new strategies to lure well-off customers into their establishments. “Shopping,” a word coined in this period, became a leisure activity for women and men of the upper and middling classes. Retailers extended credit to customers to boost sales. New methods of advertising fueled demand. Marketing occurred mainly at the site of the shop, but printed trade cards and handbills, some of which were illustrated with exotic images, increasingly stimulated interest in goods. Advertisements also appeared in newspapers and fashion journals. Mediated by merchants and retailers, new channels of dialogue opened between producers and consumers, supporting a reciprocal relationship between supply and demand. Not only were more points of contact between retailers and customers established but more information flowed between them. The information exchanged in this dialogue created feedback loops between producers and consumers that often (though not always) stimulated supply and demand. Thus, demand was neither a direct emanation of primordial human needs nor an automatic response to commercial manipulation. It was a social and cultural force that developed through communication systems mediated by information brokers of all types.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Going Shopping
  • Michael Kwass, The Johns Hopkins University, Maryland
  • Book: The Consumer Revolution, 1650–1800
  • Online publication: 13 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511979255.004
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  • Going Shopping
  • Michael Kwass, The Johns Hopkins University, Maryland
  • Book: The Consumer Revolution, 1650–1800
  • Online publication: 13 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511979255.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Going Shopping
  • Michael Kwass, The Johns Hopkins University, Maryland
  • Book: The Consumer Revolution, 1650–1800
  • Online publication: 13 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511979255.004
Available formats
×