Receipt. // A Consumer Taxonomy
The Concept The consumer of recent times has multiplied his need to consume infinitely. In the pre technology era the consumer’s priorities were to survive, beyond reality lay religeon and a heavy focus was placed on spirituality. However, today the consumers focus is on consumption. The consumer is faced with huge societal pressures to look good, to have the latest technology and to keep up with the people they are surrounded by. This shift in the consumers priorities has lead to the situation we are faced with today. The style, more important than the substance. The brand, more important than the function. The present, more important than the future. Receipts are a physical representation of the act of consuming. Every purchase, every transaction archived by the thin pieces of paper that fill pockets and purses accross the globe. If someone were to find your entire lifes receipts, would it be representitve? Would it reflect who you are as a person? This book is an chronological archive of one single person’s receipts taken from journeys to the trafford centre in Manchester. The trafford centre, containing over 280 seperate stores is, simply, a consumer haven. My concept? What conclusions, if any, can be drawn from your consumer spending pattern.
Parameter’s All receipts are taken from journeys to the trafford centre, including travel, food and drink (whilst at the TC or whilst on the way/way back from the TC) and material items purchased whilst there. All receipts are to be shown exactly as they exist at this moment, no physical or digital editing. The store name, date and amount spent will be recorded to extract themes and trends.
Receipt #1 Miss Selfridge / 09.11.12 / ÂŁ22.00
Receipt #2 McDonalds / 09.11.12 / ÂŁ2.09
Receipt #3 WHSmiths / 09.11.12 / £1.59
Receipt #4 Starbucks/ 09.11.12 / ÂŁ2.95
Receipt #5 Superdrug / 09.11.12 / ÂŁ9.05
Receipt #6 Starbucks / 07.12.12 / ÂŁ5.15
Receipt #7 Pandora / 22.12.12 / ÂŁ85.00
Receipt #8 Pandora / 22.12.12 / Gift Receipt
Receipt #9 Rail Ticket / 08.03.13 / ÂŁ11.80
Receipt #10 Marks & Spencers / 09.03.13 / ÂŁ10.00
Receipt #11 The Perfume Shop / 09.03.13 / ÂŁ24.99
Receipt #12 The Perfume Shop / 09.03.13 / Card Receipt
Receipt #13 Marks and Spencers / 09.03.13 / Competition Reciept
Receipt #14 Boots / 05.04.13 / £1.30
Receipt #15 Boots / 06.04.13 / £2.60
Receipt #16 Odeon / 12.04.13 / £15.50
Receipt #17 Starbucks / 27.04.13 / ÂŁ3.08
Receipt #18 Boots / 03.06.13 / £5.47
Receipt #19 Marks and Spencers / 08.06.13 / ÂŁ9.05
Receipt #20 Goumet Burger Kitchen / 21.06.13 / ÂŁ18.05
Receipt #21 Gourmet Burgur Kitchen / 21.06.13 / ÂŁ2.95
Receipt #22 Gourmet Burger Kitchen / 21.06.13 / Card Reciept
Receipt #23 Gourmet Burger Kitchen / 21.06.13 / Card Receipt
Receipt #24 Metrolink Ticket / 22.06.13 / ÂŁ3.80
Receipt #25 Poundland / 05.07.13 / ÂŁ0.59
Receipt #26 Dominos Pizza / 05.07.13 / ÂŁ29.18
Receipt #27 EAT / 06.07.13 / Card Receipt
Receipt #28 EAT / 06.07.13 / £6.60
Receipt #29 Selfridges / 03.08.13 / ÂŁ2.25
Receipt #30 Next / 10.08.13 / £20.00
Statistics Total sperate visits to TC - 17 Receipt Group Travel Receipts - 2 Food & Drink Receipts - 17 Material Objects - 9 Other - 2
Payment Method Card - 23 Cash - 3 Not specified - 4
Amount of times visited per month 11/12 - 5 12/12 - 3 03/13 - 5 05/13 - 4 06/13 - 7 07/13 - 4 08/13 - 2
Amount spent per month 11/12 - £37.68 12/12 - £90.15 03/13 - £46.79 05/13 - £22.48
Conclusions This consumer visited the TC 17 times in a 9 month period. That’s an average of almost twice a month. I consider this generally high as a visit to the trafford centre would generally mean spending a considerable amount as you wouldnt generally go there as a soley social activity. The consumer spent a total of £295.04 over the 9 month period but again taking into account that they only visited it in 7 of those 9 months it is an average spend of £42.15 per month or £17.36 per visit. An extremely interesting point to this research was the fact that, of the 26 receipts that could be defined as card or cash payments, a huge 23 of those were paid by card. Thats 88% of transactions paid by card. This is evidence that consumers carry less and less cash on them and use their card the majority of the time. Going back to my concept as to how consumer patterns have changed, im sure this figure would have been significantly less as recently as 5/10 years ago. I feel through this small sample of 30 receipts it is possible to begin to build up a consumer profile, through a larger sample size it would be interesting to explore whether life groups such as age, gender, race and class can be defined by a sample of receipts.
Receipt. // A Consumer Taxonomy