The Impact of Shopping Carts on Consumers Behavior and Possible Actions to Resist
The shopping cart is the tool we use to acquire goods, in practice it can be seen as the boat to navigate on when we are engaged in shopping activity in the ocean of possible products to be acquired. This is particularly true if we refer to online shopping. Every consumer is constantly tracked and monitored: companies use data of our WiFi and our IPs to determine our location, track our actions, clicks, queries, history and so on in order to show us highly targeted advertisements, advice products what might satisfy our needs and even make conscious needs that otherwise would remain unconscious. It is reasonable to say that, in some cases, companies that have our data know our needs better than us, and this knowledge allows the companies to use the information in predictive analysis and therefore to anticipate our behavior. Moreover, by showing complementary products, accessories, and products that are in some way connected with something you bought, the companies are able not only to predict our behaviors but also to influence and shape it.
This is something that could cause a sense of frustration in the customer, although sometimes targeted ads simplify our life and inform us about some really interesting offer, knowing that we are seeing that advertisement because the companies have our data and know exactly what we do, obviously create some discomfort and a sensation of our freedom being violated. This, however, is true not only for online behavior and purchases. As we saw, technology in shaping the shopping experience also in physical shops. As a matter of fact, having a shopping cart with a scanner and connected to our profile and credit cards allows us to exit the store without queuing at the cashier but at the same time allows the companies to track our behaviors, preferences about products and to acquire private information about our shopping habits.
While many supermarkets have already been surveilling their customers' behaviors through cameras, loyalty card programs, or credit card data, the new digitized shopping cards incorporate various kinds of sensors that can be used to mine all kinds of data during a customer's grocery shopping. The consequences of this are still to be investigated and depend on where this data is used and to whom it is sold. It could potentially close the loop of one’s offline/online shopping as the gathered data during offline shopping could be used for targeted advertising and predictive modeling for online shopping.
Regulation: Why Do We Need It?
It is natural to ask ourselves Why is it important to protect our data? To answer we could list dozens of reasons but, in our opinion, the main ones are
represented by the need of protecting our fundamental rights and freedoms that are related to that data, to preserve our right of choice without being unconsciously pushed into certain buying behaviors, and to prevent misuses of our personal data, frauds, and other illegal or unethical behaviors. These were also the reasons that pushed the EU parliament to approve the GDPR 2018 that aims to give the consumers the choice of the information they want to reveal and force companies to treat data in a regulated and safe manner. As a matter of fact, the six guiding principles for this act were lawfulness, fairness and transparency, purpose limitation, data minimization, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity and confidentiality (security), and accountability. However, by definition, regulation is a rule made by a formal authority, in this case, the EU parliament gave European citizens the option to protect their data, but this does not mean that citizens will make use of this possibility.
Resistance
Resistance comes from taking an active stance against something. It is born from animosity against the status quo and the existing power relations. While resistance is a tool of objection, it is however not absolute in its form. Interpretations of resistance rely heavily on the structural reading of agency and structure. However, it presents itself in many different ways and is strongly embedded in the ethical and moral judgment and experience of injustice. Resistance is not necessarily measured by the consequences of the action, but rather the performance of self-empowerment that the objection that resistance offers.
In general, the more one uses the services of corporations tracking and monitoring one's data, the more one participates in their own data mining and surveillance. However, it is not always possible to reject the usage of these services. Some means to protect one’s privacy can be using a Tor browser to anonymize the location, plugins that block cookies and trackers or obfuscate one’s information. An obvious tool for online shopping would be a traditional ad-blocker. This sometimes does come with the disadvantage of not being granted access to the website's content though. It is important to stay alert about what information and data are being collected. In order to do so, projects like the “Data Detox Kit” (https://datadetoxkit.org/en/home) or “Trace my Shadow” (https://myshadow.org/trace-my-shadow) from the Berlin-based NGO Tactical Tech may help to make this visible.
Conclusions
As we described, both online and offline shopping carts are indented to shape our behaviors and emotions. If you do not trust us, try to observe the tiles on the supermarket next time you go shopping, you will see that these are small and meant to cause a lot of noise if you go fast with your shopping cart. In this way, you are almost forced to slow down and have a closer look at the goods and therefore you will have a higher probability to buy something that is not on your list.
With the advent of innovations and the decrease in their price, the increase in online shopping, profiling, and surveillance activities are easier for the companies and therefore they have even more tools to shape our behavior, have an impact on our feelings, and even create desires. We all should be aware of that. Fortunately, we can protect ourselves by using the tools available to us and by informing ourselves about the techniques used to influence us. The Eu parliament did a huge step forward by giving us the possibility to choose what to do with our data, now it is up to us to take active actions to protect our data and to avoid being conditioned by our shopping cards.
Authors: Vladimir, Suzan, Paul, Erik
0 Comments8 Minutes
Four different shopping cart portrayals in Europe (Denmark, Italy, Germany and Switzerland)
Shopping carts in Denmark
In Denmark, we generally use two different forms of vehicles to move purchased goods around. The shopping basket and the shopping cart. They are found almost exclusively in places to shop for food and household items, as opposed to stores of consumer goods such as garments, electronics, toys, makeup, etc. The Danish name of it is ‘indkøbsvogn’ or ‘indkøbskurv’ which also refers to the activity of food and household purchases [indkøb] rather than shopping [shoppe/shopping], which is seen as a separate leisure activity, and therefore also creates a different mental reference due to the linguistic relativism.
Shopping carts in Denmark are found in supermarkets and hypermarkets. They are commonly made out of metal and are equipped with a seat that can be folded into the cart, near to the handle. People use these for their purse and bag, or as child seats, where the child is facing the parent. The carts are designed to fit into each other, to take up less space, which can create long chains of interlocked vehicles that can be easily moved. Most carts require a 10dkkr [coin] deposit, to detach it from the others.
The Shopping basket comes in two versions: One meant for carrying and one slightly larger with wheel and a handle, that allows people to drag the cart behind them. The basket is more or less the same at all stores but does indicate belonging by applying the colour scheme of the store, and sometimes the logo on the handle. The baskets are designed to be stackable, so that they can be easily moved from the register and exit to the entrance, to create a full circle of use to reuse.
While the shopping cart is used in hypermarkets, the basket is more commonly used in small and medium-sized stores; The cart is used for families and big purchases as it takes up much of the physical space in the store. If a store was to accommodate more carts, it would take up more product space. In the larger cities where the shops are also smaller, it is common to not have or at least not use the carts, even if one is doing a large purchase. This could also be due to the fact that fewer people have cars in larger cities and would, therefore, wish to transport fewer products home.
The shopping cart or basket is brought around the store. If people leave it, they only leave it shortly to gather some goods and return as a yoyo. In this way, it becomes organizes a central base of belonging in an otherwise foreign environment.
Both versions seem to be crude and simple versions of the technology. We do not use special scanners or screens. Shopping is done the same way as it has been for the last 30 years.
Shopping carts are at times repurposed by young people making trouble and playing around or by homeless people; however, neither of these are commonly seen. Removing, the shopping cart from it natural bounds is not socially permitted, and will cause people to stare, comment or react.
While it is permitted to carry goods around in the store in self brought bags and baskets, this is highly unusual. People use the in-store basket as a norm (Explicating that would require more in-depth investigation). The two separate containers will be carried around the store simultaneously - never left outside. Once you enter the bounds of the store the home-brought multipurpose basket is transformed from pure to danger (Douglas 1966); adversely the stores shopping basket can be seen as pure within the store, and danger outside the store.
Small fabric trolleys on wheels are very rarely seen, and if so, they are usually used by people who have a need to log around things, due to precarious life situations, such as partial homelessness or lack of social support systems or economic affluence – two things that otherwise enable and support food shopping structures in Denmark (however, I will not get into that as it moves off-topic for now).
Shopping carts in Italy and the particular case of Venice
Shopping carts in Italy are a “must-have” for every supermarket. Even the small supermarkets have them. Some shops decided to solve the space issue by simply using smaller carts or by using shopping baskets with wheels. In Italy the cuisine and the meals are not only a matter of food but also a matter of culture, these are essential parts of the day and their symbolic value is very high, this is reflected also in the shopping behaviour and in the way the shopping carts are used and the frequency of their use. Usually, the consumers drive to the supermarket and acquire the groceries usually for the whole week. Usually, you need a 50c or 1€ coin to unlock the cart and as a standard, they have the foldable seat for the children or the purse. The supermarkets also provide its customers with baskets that can either have wheels or be carried by hand, in both cases these are for the people that have to buy just a few things. This is the typical use but it is important to notice that during the COVID-19, shopping carts became a tool to maintain social distance and therefore to protect ourselves.
Another very interesting topic to be briefly discussed is the use of the carts and shopping carts in Venice. The city of Venice is certainly wonderful, but its stunning beauty also hides significant problems of living in this city. As you know, there are no cars or bikes in Venice and the city has more than 400 bridges and the most common methods to move things around is by using a shopping cart, or different kinds of carts. In Venice, the shopping carts are peculiar, usually, they are similar to trolleys. Some of them have 2 groups of 3 wheels that allow them to pull them easily up the stairs of the bridges. Similarly, porters, mailmen, garbage collectors and every other person that has to move goods around the city of Venice uses even a cart or a shopping cart.
In the first picture we have a luggage porter in Venice, then a mailman in Venice with his cart (branded Poste Italiane). The same idea applies to the man with his shopping cart on the stairs. The third picture shows the typical shopping cart in Venice.
Shopping carts in Lüneburg, Germany
Participatory observation, Tuesday 26th of May at 4:30 PM
In order to investigate the socio-technical relations of shopping carts in supermarkets in Lüneburg, I went to one of the bigger supermarkets, close to the city centre, to buy groceries.
The shed, where all the shopping carts are stored, is located approx. 20 meters from the supermarket's entrance. Every customer is required to pick up a shopping cart to enter, except for two people going into the market together. No coins are necessary to access the cart. The cart is a metal gridded container with four wheels. There are two separate doors for the entrance and the exit. In front of the shopping cart shed an employee of the supermarket takes back the carts and disinfects its handles.
Entering the supermarket most people move into the same direction. In general, most customers move forward and don't turn around. In the aisles, two shopping carts can pass or stand next to each other horizontally. When people pass each other in an aisle, they tend to do so rather quickly. Sometimes a person leaves an aisle backwards, carefully looking before doing so. Most people keep their hands on the cart a lot or leave them standing a short distance to grab a product. Most customers are by themselves but if there is another person with them, they tend to stay closely together. The only person wandering around the store without a cart or a partner with a cart in sight was a little kid looking at candys. Many customers lean onto their carts as they move through the market. I often felt the urge to move forward because other shopping carts appeared behind me, wanting to go into my direction or pass by me. Other people avoided going into the same aisle when they saw a person in that aisle. At the checkout, the carts were also used to maintain distance while standing in line.
In general, I had the impression that people rarely moved away from their carts, as they may symbolize a safe island in the market full of other people that could potentially be a threat to their health.
Shopping carts in Switzerland
For many people who are usually at home a lot (such as students or retired people), shopping is a good excuse to get out of the house, get some fresh air and see other people. They don't buy too much: only for 1-3 days and so the shopping cart was an uncommon object for them. Except for a few elderly people, who also use the shopping trolley as a walker.
Since the current pandemic, the situation looks different: Either these elderly people can no longer go shopping themselves and those who do, hoard as much stock as possible so that a shopping trolley is unavoidable.
Already before the pandemic, but now very much in use, are the self-scanning handheld devices. To get a scanner in the entrance area of the shop is to be a member of the loyalty program. This is then placed in the shopping cart on a special holder. At the end of the shopping you only have to unscan with the scanner itself. The two retailers Migros and Coop promise three advantages:
- After scanning, the articles can be packed directly
- The total purchase amount is continuously visible on the hand scanner
- No queuing at the cash desk
This technology has existed since 2011, but only now, since the introduction of COVID-19, many more people are using this kind of shopping - see picture with one station and few self-scanners.
The shopping trolleys - in Swiss German "Wägeli" - are a symbol for shopping, but also for the homeless and the youth. They are used in a different context, as a means of transport for your only belongings. But some young people like to steal shopping trolleys and use them for pranks such as cart racing. This problem confronts the manufacturers here with tricky tasks of how to solve the whole issue. The well-known problem of solving the trolley with a coin only pursues the goal that one is forced to keep order and not leave it lying around. But now there are attempts where the wheels of a shopping trolley get blocked as soon as they leave a certain distance from the shop.
Switzerland remains a little hub for innovation. Did you know that the well known baggage trolley, which has below attachments to roller escalators, was a Swiss idea?
0 Comments15 Minutes
The Shopping Cart as a two-fold symbol of consumption
The Shopping Cart
By Eric, Suzan, Vladimir and Paul
When we go shopping, the first thing many consumers do is to get a shopping cart. Invented in the 1930s by a supermarket chain owner who was thinking about a way for allowing his customers to move more groceries, it became a must in every supermarket and a key part of the customer experience in many shops. The item became a very popular, if not the most popular symbol for shopping and an increasingly consumerist society. This association makes us understand how deeply this item is rooted in our minds. It is interesting to notice how easily we take this item for granted and think about how upsetting it would be for each of us to enter a supermarket, not being able to find a shopping cart.
Since its invention, the shopping cart has been innovated repeatedly in order to be more practical, more efficient, more appealing, and easy to use. We can now see shopping carts with funny cars into which we can put our children, others with compartments for our pets, different shapes, sizes, and features. Innovations affected the usage and the comfort of the carts, however, with the advent of the internet and e-shops even the meaning of the “shopping cart” was extended: we now indicate not only the physical cart with wheels as a shopping cart but also the list of the items we want to buy online.
Even during the COVID-19 crisis, when the consumers’ behavior significantly changed very quickly and this simple item might become a way to contract the virus, it remains a cornerstone of our shopping experience and is used as a tool to respect social distancing. We decided to focus on this artifact because it is a simple but at the same time important and representative item that is continuously evolving, while remaining a crucial element of the shopping experience of every customer - online or offline.
The analog shopping cart
Shopping as both procurement of necessary goods and as a leisurely pastime is supported by easing the burden of transporting the goods around the store. While the buying could provide their own technology, method or tool to transport these goods, the norm is that the store is the provider of that ‘vehicle’ within the bounds of the physical space belonging to the store; around the store, to the registry and even on outside, as far as the lot restricted by the private property limit of the given seller. The shopping basket and shopping cart is the vehicle that supports this easing.
While it is made in many different designs, it is usually a gridded container, where customers can place objects. They are often provided with wheels, and are made in versions for parents, that allow children seating, and in motorized versions to help people with physical challenges. It negotiates a limit of products that the customer might buy: If there was no cart, customers could only buy what they could carry. Small carts can only be filled to a certain degree, and large carts enable larger purchases.
Often the shopping cart is made of cheap materials to avoid embedding it with inherent value. Some even require tokens or small deposits to unlock to avoid theft. We rarely see people away from a store with a shopping cart. In this way, we can see that their inherent function is only normalized within the store, even though it has the same function as a helping/carrying vehicle outside the store.
While shopping carts help us transform generic goods into a personalized choice, they are not in themselves a personal item. In the store, they are passed from owner to owner, once they have fulfilled their purpose. This both signifies them as enablers of economic transactions rather than part of the economy itself, and also signifies the impersonal nature of supporting technologies. While this impersonal nature is part of its functionality, it also means that the former or future use is not a part of the mental landscape and the bacteria that they pass on by, is rarely considered.
Since the pandemic, this technology has gained much attention as customers are often required to use them in order to maintain distance and shopping carts regulate the amount of customers in some stores. This change of policies will be one of our starting points for a further exploration of the topic.
The digital shopping cart and the birth of online shopping
As the analog shopping carts filled with toilet paper and pasta were one of the many symbolic images of the current pandemic in some countries, people did not only fill their analog shopping carts with goods, but also their digital shopping carts in online shops. According to TechCrunch, e-commerce has increased in sales by 49% in April, with online grocery shopping jumping up by 110%.
The option of online shopping was developed in the early stages of the internet, making it possible to assemble items in a digital shopping cart list in order to checkout with a computer processed payment once one has finished shopping. Nowadays, almost everything can be ordered online as items are shipped from many places in the world directly to the buyer’s doorstep. And since the analog shopping cart has become symbolic for the act of shopping in many parts of the world, the symbol of the cart has been adapted to the buttons in online shops, that users have to click in order to add something to their digital cart.
Since there is a digital and an analog version of the shopping cart, we decided to explore both of these dimensions during the next few days. Both versions have been adapted with various innovations during the past decades, one example being Amazon's patent of the 1-Click technique to enable faster buying procedures. As both versions of the shopping cart are experiencing an increase in usage and symbolic meaning during the current pandemic, we want to investigate the structuring aspects of the (two) technologies. Furthermore, the lines between the analog and the digital shopping cart are blurring, as physical shopping carts in supermarkets are equipped with interface and scanning devices and scales to enable self checkout shopping.
One similarity between the two, we have already found out about, is that both versions of the shopping cart are often abandoned. While most people probably know the experience of filling an online shopping cart with various items and then leaving the web page without buying them, physical shopping carts are often found in ditches, bushes or at the beach. This phenomenon has been documented by the artist Julian Montague, collaging abandoned shopping carts in his book and exhibition “The Stray Shopping Carts Of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification.”
However, racing with online shopping carts doesn’t seem to be possible just yet.
0 Comments9 Minutes