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Middle Ages

Archaeological evidence suggests that the British engaged in minimal shopping in the early Middle Ages. Instead, they provided for their basic needs through subsistence farming practices and a system of localised personal exchanges.[9] However, by the late Middle Ages, consumers turned to markets for the purchase of fresh produce, meat and fish and the periodic fairs where non-perishables and luxury goods could be obtained.[10] Women were responsible for everyday household purchases, but most of their purchasing was of a mundane nature. For the main part, shopping was seen as a chore rather than a pleasure.[11]
Relatively few permanent shops were to be found outside the most populous cities. Instead customers walked into the tradesman's workshops where they discussed purchasing options directly with tradesmen.[12] Itinerant vendors such as costermongers, hucksters and peddlers operated alongside markets, providing the convenience of home delivery to households, and especially to geographically isolated communities.[13]

Shopping for pleasure

• The modern phenomenon of shopping for pleasure is closely linked to the emergence of a middle class in the 17th and 18th-century Europe. As standards of living improved in the 17th century, consumers from a broad range of social backgrounds began to purchase goods that were in excess of basic necessities. An emergent middle class or bourgeosie stimulated demand for luxury goods and began to purchase a wider range of luxury goods and imported goods, including: Indian cotton and calico; silk, tea and porcelain from China, spices from India and South-East Asia and tobacco, sugar, rum and coffee from the New World.[17] The act of shopping came to be seen as a pleasurable pass-time or form of entertainment.[2]
• By the 17th-century, produce markets gradually gave way to shops and shopping centres; which changed the consumer's shopping experience.[18] The New Exchange, opened in 1609 by Robert Cecil in the Strand was one such example of a planned shopping centre. Shops started to become important as places for Londoners to meet and socialise and became popular destinations alongside the theatre. Restoration London also saw the growth of luxury buildings as advertisements for social position with speculative architects like Nicholas Barbon and Lionel Cranfield.

• Much pamphleteering of the time was devoted to justifying conspicuous consumption and private vice for luxury goods for the greater public good. This then scandalous line of thought caused great controversy with the publication of Bernard Mandeville's influential work Fable of the Bees in 1714, in which he argued that a country's prosperity ultimately lay in the self-interest of the consumer.[19]
• These trends gathered momentum in the 18th century, as rising prosperity and social mobility increased the number of people with disposable income for consumption. Important shifts included the marketing of goods for individuals as opposed to items for the household, and the new status of goods as status symbols, related to changes in fashion and desired for aesthetic appeal, as opposed to just their utility. The pottery inventor and entrepreneur, Josiah Wedgewood, pioneered the use of marketing techniques to influence and manipulate the direction of the prevailing tastes.[20] One of his preferred sales techniques was to stage expansive showcases of wares in this private residences or in a rented hall, to which he invited the upper classes.[21]
• As the 18th-century progressed, a wide variety of goods and manufactures were steadily made available for the urban middle and upper classes. This growth in consumption led to the rise of 'shopping' - a proliferation of retail shops selling particular goods and the acceptance of shopping as a cultural activity in its own right. Specific streets and districts became devoted to retail, including the Strand and Piccadilly in London.[22]
• Royal Arcade, Sydney, 1892
• The rise of window shopping as a recreational activity accompanied the use of glass windows in retail shop-fronts. By the late eighteenth century, grand shopping arcades began to emerge across Britain, Europe and in the Antipodes in what became known as the "arcade era."[23] Typically, these arcades had a roof constructed of glass to allow for natural light and to reduce the need for candles or electric lighting. Inside the arcade, individual stores were fitted with long glass exterior windows which allowed the emerging middle-classes to window shop and indulge in fantasies, even when they may not have been able to afford the high retail prices.[24]
• Designed to attract the genteel middle class, retailers sold luxury goods at relatively high prices. However, prices were never a deterrent, as these new arcades came to be the place to shop and to be seen. Arcades offered shoppers the promise of an enclosed space away from the chaos of daily street life; a place shoppers could socialise and spend their leisure time. As thousands of glass covered arcades spread across Europe, they became grander and more ornately decorated. By the mid nineteenth century, promenading in these arcades became a popular pass-time for the emerging middle classes.[25]
• In Europe, the Palais-Royal, which opened in 1784, became one of the earliest examples of the new style of shopping arcade, frequented by both the aristocracy and the middle classes. It developed a reputation as being a site of sophisticated conversation, revolving around the salons, cafés, and bookshops, but also became a place frequented by off-duty soldiers and was a favourite haunt of prostitutes, many of whom rented apartments in the building.[26] In London, one of the first to use display windows in shops was retailer, Francis Place, who experimented with this new retailing method at his tailoring establishment in Charing Cross, where he fitted the shop-front with large plate glass windows. Although this was condemned by many, he defended his practice in his memoirs, claiming that he:
• sold from the window more goods...than paid journeymen's wages and the expenses of housekeeping.[27]Retailers designed attractive shop fronts to entice patronage, using bright lights, advertisements and attractively arranged goods. The goods on offer were in a constant state of change, due to the frenetic change in fashions. A foreign visitor commented that London was "a world of gold and silver plate, then pearls and gems shedding their dazzling lustre, home manufactures of the most exquisite taste, an ocean of rings, watches, chains, bracelets, perfumes, ready-dresses, ribbons, lace, bonnets, and fruits from all the zones of the habitable world"