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- Title
THE SUPERMARKET AND SOCIETY.
- Authors
McClelland, W. G.
- Abstract
The article focuses on the changes in the retailing market, and presents the observations of retailers, who hope to stimulate others to approach the subject in a scientific fashion. The development of supermarkets affects primarily the type of shop housewives visit most frequently, it is taking place rapidly and on a large scale, and it alters radically the type of social contact that most shopping has up to now involved. In mid-1961 supermarkets accounted for three-to-four per cent of total food trade. It has been suggested that senior staff will do more serving than junior staff, so the chances are better than one in six that the customer will be served by the person who served the customer on his or her previous visit. The author discusses the working relationship and the customer service issues. According to the author, self-service reduces interaction between customers and staff and alters its character. Opportunities for satisfactory social relations between customers in the same shop are greater with self-service than with counter-service.
- Subjects
RETAIL stores; SUPERMARKETS; RETAIL industry; CUSTOMER relations; CUSTOMER services; SOCIAL interaction; HOUSEWIVES as consumers
- Publication
Sociological Review, 1962, Vol 10, Issue 2, p133
- ISSN
0038-0261
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1467-954X.1962.tb01106.x