Shopping as an Entertainment Experience
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Like the ultimate in mass leisure provided by People and In Style, Sony, Benneton
and other corporations mix advertising into a sophisticated entertainment formula.
The Department Store
Sophisticated retail environments have never been content to simply let
the goods lie on the table or on the rack. Very quickly it was realized that to
differentiate one’s store from the bazaar or boutique, what one had to do was
entice the potential consumer by educating and offering more than the basic
staples of goods. Almost immediately, the early French department store
magnates began to offer a wide array of extra consumption activities, ranging
from elaborate window displays to hairdressing salons. The early entrepreneurs
knew that they had to come up with something fantastic to entrance and attract the
crowds. It was, as Michael Miller has observed, about “seduction and
showmanship” (Miller 167). The founder of the Bon Marche, Aristide Boucicaut,
was at the forefront of the business of dazzling potential consumers. He had the
unparalleled ability to envelope:
. . . his marketplace in an aura of fascination that turned buying
into a special and irresistible occasion. Dazzling and sensuous,
the Bon Marche became a permanent fair, an institution, a
fantasy world, a spectacle of extraordinary proportions, so that
going to the store became an event and an adventure. One came
now less to purchase a particular article than simply to visit,
buying into the process because it was part of the excitement,
part of the experience that added another dimension to life
(Miller 167).
The public was captivated by these offerings and came to both expect
and see the department store as a place that offered something novel. By the end
of the nineteenth century, consumers were coming to the department store to be
entertained and enthralled as much as to purchase. To some, the department store
became a theatre, to others, a temple. Both within, and increasingly, on the
outside, the department store was capable of resembling both (Miller 167).
In America, Marshall Fields was a pioneer in the move to make the
department store as attractive as possible to the would-be buyer. Fields was
instrumental in giving the department store into a museum-like atmosphere,
offering tie potential consumer “something more.” This “something more”
turned the traditional notion of a retail emporium completely on its head.
Consumers, and in particular, women, could not just shop, but have tea, a
manicure, and even see a fashion show-all within the confines of Fields’s palace.
By offering these distractions, attractions, and novelties, a day, an afternoon, or
even an evening turned into an entertainment experience. In France, Aristide