Ethnography of Salvation Army Thrift Stores in Ontario, Canada

Sociology
Popular Culture
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Sociology
Ethnography is the act of recording the human cultures through interviewing, observation and
use of research methods. The paper will describe the issue of ethnography by using the case of
Salvation Army Thrift Stores in Ontario, Canada.
Shopping, Consumption, and Consumerism
Shopping
Shopping is the process of browsing and or purchasing commodities in exchange for money.
Shopping has existed as long as there has been money. The motivations for shopping can be
extracted from the different shoppers such as the “economic”, “apathetic”, and “ethical” ones.
Studies conducted reveal that shoppers are more engaged in socialization than buying of
commodities (Akenji, 2014).
There are two important motivational orientations that elaborates the shopping motives. First one
is utilitarian, which is task related, efficient and rational. The other one is; hedonic, which is
subjective resulting in playfulness issues (Bauer, Wilkie, Kim, Bodenhausen, 2012). According
to various scholars and academicians, the two types engage in different aspects which determines
their satisfaction level.
In addition to this consumers get both hedonic and thrift benefits from thrift shopping.
Furthermore, they found that the pursuit or practice of thrift itself (as an outcome) provided
hedonic benefits. It is vital to know shopping, consumption, and consumerism are closely related
(Belk, 2014).
Consumption

Sociology
Consumption can be described as the act of using up a resource. As discussed above, shopper’s
forms a clear example based on aspects of consumption since they exhibit different consumption
behaviors determined by the buyer’s level of involvement and interest in a product (Copeland,
2014). Some of the shopping processes include; habitual buying behaviors, variety, dissonance
and the complex shopping. Different researchers argue differently on the four behaviors.
Complex buying behavior is exhibited when the consumer exhibit differences between brands. In
variety behavior, here the consumer buys different products because of the urge to seek variety
(Hamari, Sjöklint, Ukkonen, 2016). As such, marketers need to encourage them to stick to a
certain product by offering incentives such as discounts and free samples. Dissonance buying
behavior is associated with habitual buying behavior whereby they are characterized by low
involvement of the consumer.
Consumerism
Han and Yoon (2015) defines consumerism as the organized-efforts by individuals, groups, and
governments to help protect consumers from policies and practices that infringe consumer rights
to fair business practices.
As such, consumerism is an important aspect in our lives. It functions much as a way for
consumers to communicate with society at large where they fit. Jean Baudrillard claims that our
purchases reflects the consumption aspect which relates to our psychological production of self
(Hsu, Chuan-Chuan Chiang, 2013). Consequently, the postmodern consumers they cannot be
satisfied since the products they purchase are described as “characteristic signs of happiness”.
Therefore, consumers in order to meet hopes of getting fulfillment, they are forced to consume
more products for specific time.