First things;
I apologise for being absent for so long! Life caught up with me. I can't promise I'll be regularly posting over the near future because I am incredibly busy but I will be trying!
On to the blog post...
The economic downturn that has so plagued western civilisation these past 5 or so years is finally, painfully, slowly receding and ordinary folks are starting to feel a bit of extra change weighing down their wallets.
The extra money is a welcome relief for many, the sharp rise in prices for things like food and petrol have really stung people and it’s nice to see them slow - if not stop - for a while. Now as a behavioural psychologist I’m always interested to see how changes in an environment - both social and physical - and how that impacts behaviour. Looking back over the economic downturn there has been one area where behaviour has dramatically (and possibly permanently) changed; shopping behaviour.
First a bit of history (within my lifetime...) on shopping habits in the UK; incidentally this is completely unscientific and totally anecdotal. To counter this I offer some caveats; my family are typical, Northern middle class. We were not poor, nor were we particularly well off. My mom was not a North London suburbanite spending £250 a week on Waitrose special pate, nor were we scraping by to get food on the table. We were just sort of... in the middle. So I like to think that my experience was fairly typical.
When I was young I remember going to two supermarkets; Tesco and Sainsbury’s. Waitrose, the granddaddy of upper-class shopping experience had not bothered to open a store in the North, as the London-based company no doubt considers us far too impoverished (Northern Pride moment over...). Sainsbury’s was always nicer to me, but according to my mum “too expensive”. Tesco was considered just right. ASDA (our Walmart) was not considered an option as it was generally agreed the quality wasn’t as good for the savings. At the bottom of the pile was Aldi, Lidl and Netto (the latter being now defunct). It was not considered proper to go to these shops and I genuinely think it never occurred to many middle earners to go.
That was in the 90’s. Fast forward to 2009 and there is a wholly different feeling among the savvy shoppers of middle England and beyond. Tesco is overpriced, Sainsbury’s is too fancy (and way too expensive), Waitrose is “for posh southerners”, and ASDA is becoming a bit more acceptable, but the real difference has been in the verbal and physical behaviour levelled at Aldi and Lidl. No longer are they considered obscure, lower class continental supermarkets with poor quality food and factory-rejects. They are now chic, stylish, and a mark of a savvy shopper. Among the shoppers can now be seen more of the “AB” class - what normal people call middle class - shopping alongside the people from generally deprived socio-economic categories.
What can explain this? My own two cents on the issue is that when public opinion shifted away from the spend and spend model of government characterised by the neoliberalism of Tony Blair’s New Labour government and towards the more traditional austerity mindset associated with Conservatives public attitude towards affluent spending also shifted. We were poorer in terms of inflation and wage depression, prices rose at an out of control rate and all of a sudden the Tesco shop that one week was £90 suddenly because £150 or more. Further people started to question the quality of what they were buying. Was this bread really worth £1.20?
A money-saving mindset emerged. Cool was no longer being a yuppie and flashing your cash around on conspicuous purchases it became “the thing to do” to save money and appear frugal. It was no longer reinforcing, in other words, to pay £5 for some scottish smoked salmon. But here’s the rub; supermarkets didn’t catch on quick enough to this, expecting their hegemonic control of food distribution in the UK to be relatively unchallenged since people (before 2009) wouldn’t generally stomach the low end shops.
Unfortunately for the supermarkets (and fortunately for us, the consumer) Aldi and Lidl started to aggressively market themselves as the equal-but-cheaper alternative. Their products, they claimed, were as good if not better than the “big four” but were sometimes more than half the price. When people saw £3 bottles of wine being declared some of the best in the world, and high end products like aged cheese and meats reduced to bargain prices without skimping on quality a shift occurred. The favourable social environment towards personal money saving efforts along with the very tangible reinforcement of more money in the bank account the setting was ripe for a shift in consumer behaviour.
I know plenty of people - including some very well to do people - who proudly and unashamedly shop almost exclusively at Lidl and Aldi and will tell anyone they can that Serrano Ham is only £1.50 a pack.
My own change in behaviour has been quite strong. I am a typical, bargain hunting young adult. I haven’t the cash to flash around at Waitrose, nor even Tesco (who routinely punish me for bothering to grace their doorstep). For the last three years my main supermarket has been Morrisons, a sort of middle of the road shop. However recently I have shifted almost completely to Aldi. For a comparison in terms of prices me and my girlfriend spend about £70 a week on food, I did a comparable shop at Aldi and found I spent only £30! That is a significant saving. Obviously results may vary depending on what you buy or how large your family is.
Consider, finally, that the time is right to support this kind of behaviour change. There is a strong, supportive verbal community and immediate reinforcing contingencies associated with it.
**Disclaimer; I do not work for, nor am paid by, Aldi, Lidl or anyone else. I just think shopping behaviour is fascinating**
