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Chapter 1: Introduction—Reclaiming the Informal and the Things
Within
1.1: Modernity and Shopping Malls
The advent of modernity seems to have brought about a significant rise in formal
retail and consumption spaces, such as shopping malls, in urban areas throughout the
world, and with it an array of distinct consumption practices that appear to be tied
intricately with what appears to be rapid economic development and resultant changes in
class structure and identity. Like most urban centers which pride themselves as ‗modern‘,
the nation-state of Singapore, in its endless bid to portray an image of a global city, has
attempted to brand itself as the ―Fashion Shopping Capital of Asia‖ and ―one of the
world‘s greatest shopping streets‖, by systematically and consistently promoting1 dozens
of glitzy malls along its Orchard Road shopping belt (Singapore Tourism Board, 2010). It
has been argued that rationality, often considered a characteristic and consequence of
such modernity, has influenced both production as well as consumption practices to be
increasingly subjected to ―McDonaldization‖, placing a heavy emphasis on ―efficiency,
predictability, calculability and control by non-human technology‖, as evidenced by the
popularity of supermarkets and department stores (Ritzer, 1993). This equation of
‗modernity‘ with shopping malls and department stores is also an unequivocal one in
much of social science, having been described as ―dream places‖ and ―cathedrals of
(contemporary) consumption‖ (Williams, 1982; Ferguson, 1992 from Chua, 2003).
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Under its ‗Tourism Shopping and Dining‘ department, The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has a ‗fashion‘ team
that engages in ―strategic partnerships with the fashion retail industry and other divisions to optimise tourist
spending and augment their shopping experience‖ and a retail team dedicated to ―the tourism shopping landscape
and works closely with several strategic partners including the Orchard Road Business Association (ORBA), the
Singapore Retailers Association ( SRA), The Association of Shopping Centres (TASC) and Central Refund
Agencies (Global Refund and Premier Tax Free)‖ (Singapore Tourism Board, 2010).
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The logic of economism and rationality seem to prevail in this very ‗modern‘ nation
state, where city planning authorities and the Singapore Tourism Board have worked hard
to ensure that the retail experience in Singapore measures up to the expectations of the
‗global‘ and ‗cosmopolitan‘ consumer. The consumption patterns of commodities sold in
these retail spaces have also been described to be increasingly ―cosmopolitan‖ as
Singapore is fitted ever more tightly into the global marketing strategies of goods (Chua,
2003: 15). Having always been seen as a ‗modern‘ city, Singapore‘s evolution into a
world city ―is but its logical unfolding as a modern space‖, with the proliferation of
shopping centers serving as the hallmark of its equally ‗modern‘ consumption culture
(ibid: 18). Chua also notes how according to sociologist Mike Featherstone (1998), the
saturation of shopping malls has caused overbuilding in Singapore, such that ―walking
through the heart of Singapore is like walking through a series of large shopping centers‖
(from Chua, 2003: 41). Recognizing the significant role of shopping malls and
department stores in Singapore‘s consumption culture, Chua has conducted a detailed
ethnography of Takashimaya, a popular Japanese-owned department store located within
the Ngee Ann City shopping mall located along Orchard Road. It would seem then, that
the consumption culture in the very ‗modern‘ city-state of Singapore has been informed
and shaped considerably by such forces that have pushed it to market itself as ‗global‘ in
its provision and consumption of retail experiences.
1.2: Street Markets—Vestiges of a ‘Pre-modern’ Past?
By extension, then, the converse was thought to be true of seemingly less
structured and ordered forms of retail and consumption practices. Cross and Morales
2
have noted that with the growth of the ―modernist system‖ of economic management,
mass markets were required to meet the supply of goods mass production in factories
produced, resulting in ―total‖, massive changes in business organization and market
systems, impacting ―the very culture and social life of individuals, families and
communities‖ (2007: 3). Despite economic modernism being an almost ―total system‖
that required every aspect of society to be ―molded according to its requirements‖ of
optimal efficiency and productivity, modernists lamented the continued, albeit
diminished, presence of types of commerce that were thought to threaten economic
‗development‘ and ‗growth‘ (ibid). Street markets were one such form of economic
activity that was regarded with disdain by analysts as ―irrational‖ remnants of ‗premodern‘ life presumably associated with what was often conceived as ‗less developed‘
economies of impoverished societies. Elements of such ‗pre-modernity‘ are often
regarded as not only antithetical and detrimental to the growth of modern economic
systems, but also ill-fitted for urban environments (ibid: 4). Attempts to rid of the urban
‗chaos‘ caused by street hawkers were meticulously carried out by city-planning
authorities in twentieth-century Singapore (Yeoh, 1996: 243-280). Street hawkers and
markets were deemed unhygienic and disorganized, and thus an obstruction to public
order and health. Dewar and Watson (1990: 93) note that authorities in Singapore had a
‗three phase‘ policy for the removal of street trading:
The first phase consisted of moving street traders from main streets to
back streets and alleys and providing basic market-services for them. This
phase is complete. The second, and current, phase consists of building of
nucleated market buildings in both the city centre and the suburbs and
moving street traders nto them. The first of these markets was built in
1972 and it is estimated that by 1989, all street traders will be re-sited.
3
Thereafter, in the third phase, authorities will concentrate on policing the
new system and ensuring that no further informal markets emerge.
Clifford Geertz in his classic study Peddlers and Princes (1963) has also reflected this
modernist strand of sentiment. He concurred that street markets and bazaars were
vestiges of a romantic past that had little place nor purpose in the ‗modern‘ world order,
and argued, from a cultural perspective, that the ‗bazaar economy‘ was irrational as it
―has the disadvantage that it turns even the established businessman away from an
interest in reducing costs and developing markets and toward petty speculation and shortrun opportunism‖ (ibid: 28-29).
The ‗pre-modern‘, ―relative disorder of (street) markets and merchants‖ seemed to
have little refuge in the modernist ideal of a highly organized and ordered world (ibid).
Efforts were made by the authorities in Singapore to minimize and regulate the presence
of hawkers, firstly, by passing laws that required hawkers to be registered and licensed;
and secondly, by confining such undesirable, ―fringe economic activities‖ to particular
pre-assigned localities, where the municipal surveillance of such economic activity could
be carried out (ibid: 262). Similarly, Cross and Morales have cited urban planning in
European cities as examples of how ―the `modernist dream of a model society‖ was
played out through architects‘ visions of an ―ideal‖ place where planned structures in
urban areas ensured that each individual was assigned to his or her place in life through
the physical organization of urban activity (ibid). Thus, in accordance with urban
planners in ‗Western‘ cities in the nineteenth-century, streets, walkways and verandahs in
Singapore were seen as spaces built solely for the flow of pedestrian traffic, and were
―areas to move through, not be in‖ (ibid: 268). City planners thus sought their solution for
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such seeming ‗irrationality‘ through banning and over-regulating street vendors, while at
the same time ―redesigning urban spaces so that street vending could no longer exist‖
(Cross and Morales, 2007: 7).
1.3: Reclaiming the ‘informal’—The Flea Market
Despite the authorities‘ introduction of stringent rules to regulate the prevalence of
street hawkers, vendors, and markets, however, such forms of ‗fringe economic activity‘
did not disappear entirely into history. Notwithstanding the ubiquitous existence of
shopping malls, department stores, supermarkets and flagship stores of major
transnational brand-name products along the much-promoted Orchard Road shopping
belt in Singapore, ‗informal‘ and ‗alternative‘ retail spaces reside alongside2 such
‗formal‘ modes of economic activity, making the retail scene in Singapore an almostcurious mix of densely-packed retail spaces. The ‗wet markets‘ and ‗provision shops‘ of
the residential heartlands still sustain a significant part of day to day life in Singapore,
and have not given way entirely to supermarkets and convenience stores, and there also
continue to exist ‗night markets‘ or pasar malam3 set up along roads winding through
these public housing estates. More recently, ‗flea‘ markets 4have also mushroomed all
2
Some night markets, for example, are held right outside ‗brick and mortar‘ shop premises in Housing Development
Board estates. Recently, however, shop owners in Clementi Central estate have been said to be antagonistic towards
night market vendors, as they claim that the competition brought about by lower prices of goods at the night market
has caused a drop in their business ―by at least 20 per cent‖. Shop owners have also complained about vendors
blocking the walkways outside their shops and obstructing customer traffic (The Sunday Times, November 22,
2009).
3
See Chapter 3 for a description of the different types of ‗informal‘ retail in Singapore.
4
‗Flea markets‘ are a diverse category of informal modes of retail and refer to different types of set-ups in different
places. The ‗flea markets‘ studied in this paper, however, refer to a specific type of event-based retail set-up that has
been popularized in the last five years. These flea markets also explicitly refer to themselves as such. See Chapter 3
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over the island-state. Unlike the night markets found in public housing estates, these flea
markets are event-based, held over weekends and usually only last for less than a day
(about six or seven hours), at locations all over Singapore5. They are also run by a central
organizer6 that rents stalls out to interested vendors and promotes these flea market
events through online blogs and websites. As these flea markets seem to target and attract
youth, they are forming a small but vibrant part of youth and popular culture in Singapore.
Thus, while modernist notions of economic activity have relegated street markets,
merchants, vendors and hawkers to the sphere of the informal, irrational and hence
undesirable, it has been suggested that the resurgence and continued popularity of such
business are, arguably, a condition of ‗postmodernity‘ (Cross and Morales, 2007). As
―reasoned reactions to local manifestations of today‘s economic, cultural, and social
world‖, street markets the world over are thought to be flexible adaptations to evolving
circumstances and conditions, successfully responding to consumer segmentation and
niche markets (ibid: 7). This has also been the case in more ‗developed‘ and ‗progressive‘
economies such as New Zealand (de Bruin and Dupuis in Cross and Morales (eds.), 2007:
245-261), the USA (LaLone, Godoy, Halsall and Matthews, 1993; Maisel, 1974; Miller,
1988; Petrocci, 1981; Sherry, 1990a; 1990b), evidence that street markets have not been
eradicated with the onslaught of ‗modernity‘ and ‗rationality‘. Other than the supposed
flexibility afforded by ‗informal‘ modes of retail, several other reasons have been cited
for a description of the type of flea markets studied in this paper, vis-à-vis other types of ‗informal‘ retail in
Singapore.
5
These locations include night clubs, museums and gentrified areas of Singapore popular with the young and
yuppies, such as Dempsey Hill.
6
Examples of these organizers include Flea-tique!, Flea Titan and Flea Fly Flo Fun.
6
for the resurgence and popularity of the various forms of ‗fringe‘ economic activity in
these societies—the ―action scene‖ of the flea market that draws people to it and causes
them to return regularly; (Maisel, 1974: 494); allowing urbanites to engage in ―more
personal, playful and sensuous forms of shopping‖ (Petrocci, 1981: 163); the
―humanization of the market process‖ through interactions between vendors and shoppers
(Miller, 1988: 59); and the ―anti-structure‖ of the market venue, which represent a
resistance to ―advanced capitalism‖ (Sherry, 1990a: 28), to name a few. These are all
meanings that imbue informal modes of retail with significance found beyond the mere
exchange of goods and services with money, according it relevance even with the
onslaught of ‗modernity‘ and ‗rationality‘.
1.4: Looking at Things in the Marketplace
This recent ―persistence and reinvigoration‖ of street markets (Cross and Morales,
2007: 8), even in an urban landscape such as Singapore that is saturated with glitzy
shopping malls, suggests that economic exchange in the twenty-first century goes beyond
the realm of the seemingly ‗rational‘ and meticulously ‗organized‘—it is not a mere
‗efficient‘ exchange of goods and services with money, but is instead intricately
embedded in social interaction, meaning and purpose. While the structure of the informal
retail settings and social actors involved have been credited to contribute to their success,
what Cross and Morales and the other authors in the same volume and elsewhere pay
scant attention to, however, is how the role of the goods exchanged in these spaces
contribute to perpetuating and popularizing such forms of economic organization and
social interaction. For example, Stillerman and Sundt (in Cross and Morales (eds.), 2007:
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180-200), in their study of Santiago‘s7 street and flea market vendors, examine the
informal sector‘s ―flexible networks, enforceable trust and bounded solidarity‖ and how
these add value to the sector‘s businesses. Similarly, Sherry‘s (1990a) analysis of the
socio-cultural significance of the flea market in the American mid-west emphasizes the
actor-centered marketplace behaviours and processes, and the way through which these
give shape to meanings associated and attached to the flea market. What these works
have fallen short of considering is how objects of such exchanges may embody, both
metaphorically and literally, a significant bulk of the resultant social interaction, meaning
and purpose.
Another way through which such modes of economic exchange and organization can
be understood is by placing ‗things‘ at the center of inquiry. Appadurai‘s seminal work
The Social Life of Things (1986) treats objects as ―living beings‖ leading ―social lives‖
(Ferguson, 1988: 491). Instead of looking at commodities as specific types of things,
Appadurai sees commodities as a state of things, a certain situation instead of a fixed and
pre-determined category. Similarly, Kopytoff, in the same volume, considers the
‗biographical‘ account of things when determining the commodity state of an object. For
Kopytoff, culture ―ensures that some things remain unambiguously singular, it resists the
commoditization of others; and it sometimes resingularizes what has been commoditized
(1986: 73). By conceptualizing of the commodity as a phase in the ‗social life‘
(Appadurai, 1986) or ‗cultural biography‘ (Kopytoff, 1986) of a thing, it opens up space
for the inquiry into the exchange and circulation of goods in less formal retail settings
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Chile
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like the flea market. The proliferation of the sale of second-hand goods in these
‗alternative‘ retail spaces thus seems to contribute to the ‗rebirth‘ of things as
commodities, challenging notions of a ‗wasteful‘ consumption culture where the
commodity phase of consumption is pronounced dead upon consumption.
A study of flea markets cannot, therefore, escape an exploration of the ‗stories‘
the goods it sells have to tell. By giving credence to the study of objects and ‗things‘
exchanged at flea markets, in addition to its structures, organization and social actors, my
research aims to contribute to existing literature on the study of the ‗informal‘ economy
and modes of retail in several ways. Firstly, as flea markets are often considered to be
part of the informal economy, as opposed to formal retail spaces such as shopping malls,
the flexibility afforded to such forms of economic exchange (Cross and Morales, 2007)
allows for an ever more intricate look at the social relations and the nature of transactions
which stem from the complex movement of objects and things within this conduit. As
Maisel suggests, flea markets are ‗action scenes‘ within which a plethora of social
interactions, drawing on the informality of the retail set-up, are played out. By also
paying attention to the goods being bought and sold in flea markets, we can better gather
the extent to which such relations and transactions are commoditized (or not), and how
they differ from or similar to those found in more formal retail settings such as shopping
malls. Secondly, the proliferation of second-hand goods on sale in flea markets,
especially in a supposedly ‗cosmopolitan‘ and affluent society like Singapore, allows for
the exploration of the extent of value co-creation and emotional attachment amongst
consumers who buy used brand-name goods. Thirdly, this sale of second-hand goods in
flea markets also allows for a tighter grasp on how certain things may or may not be re9
commodified and ‗re-born‘ as commodities, and how we can situate within Kopytoff‘s
proposed spectrum of ‗singular‘ and ‗commodity‘. Finally, by considering both the
consumers‘ and vendors‘ perspectives, the ‗stories‘ the things sold in flea markets have to
tell emerges as multi-faceted ones that are intriguing not because of its fixity to one
particular ‗life course‘, but because it is rooted in a multiplicity that is complex and
nuanced, passing through the hands of both buyers and sellers.
Overview of Thesis
This chapter has laid out the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of this
study. The following chapter (Chapter 2) will highlight its methodological guidelines and
premises, and will include details and particularities which are specific to the field site
and its participants. A brief overview of the retail scene in Singapore will be provided in
Chapter 3 to better situate the field site—The Flea—within this context. The origins and
conceptualization of The Flea will also be explored, providing a more detailed
background of its history. Chapter 4 explores how vendors use The Flea as a possible
business strategy and how they negotiate tensions surrounding the way they categorize,
valuate and subsequently price their goods. Chapter 5 documents shopper behavior at the
flea market and explores how these behaviors may influence the way these consumers
inscribe meanings and attachment into the goods they purchase and consume at the flea
market. Chapter 6 looks at how vendors and shoppers manage their interactions in the
marketplace when bargaining—a distinctive price-setting practice at the flea market—
takes place, as well as how judgments of value come into play in these situations. Chapter
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7 then concludes by highlighting some significant issues and points that have arisen out
of this study.
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Chapter 2: Methodology—The Study of a Flea Market in Singapore
2.1: Naturalistic Inquiry and Consumer Ethnography
Qualitative methods of research have been utilized to gather the richness and
detailed diversity of alternative retail settings. Maisel (1974) has used Goffman‘s (1967)
dramaturgical model of the ―action scene‖ to characterize the depth and diversity of
social interactions and experiences that go on between and amongst buyers and sellers at
flea markets. Using personal experiences as the principal point of departure for much of
his framework, Maisel studied the flea market as a narrative—―market myths‖ that are
simultaneously constructed and experienced by buyers and sellers alike. Following this
characterization of flea market settings as ―action scenes‖, Sherry (1990a) has taken
advantage of the ―richness of experience‖ that the ethnographic method affords, for his
consumer ethnography of the socio-cultural significance of the Midwestern American
flea market. In a similar vein, Belk, Sherry and Wallendorf (1988) have undertaken a
more focused and particularistic by proposing a ―naturalistic inquiry‖ into ―second order
marketing systems‖ such as ‗swap meets‘ or flea markets8. Taking place in a ―naturally
occurring context‖, natural inquiry involves a set of qualitative methods that seek to
―provide a rich portrait of the phenomenon‖ that is encountered in dynamic settings like
the flea market, where opportune social interactions such as bargaining take place (ibid,
1988: 449). The set of methods proposed by Belk et. al include observation, participation,
8
Belk et. al (1988) argue that ―the linguistic swap meet/flea market distinction ― in North America ―is more regional
than socioeconomic‖ and hence, the terms refer to similar retail settings. For the purposes of their article, the terms
‗swap meet‘ and ‗flea market‘ are used interchangeably.
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and interviews, recorded through a set of detailed field notes, journals, photographs and
audio devices, all of which are utilized in the physical confines of the field setting.
2.2: Studying a Flea Market in Singapore: A Qualitative Approach
However, although Belk et. al emphasize the advantages of an in-situ collection of
data as afforded by a naturalistic inquiry (1988: 450), the motivations for doing so do not
correspond fully with the objectives of this research and the dynamics of the chosen field
site. Belk et. al were interested primarily in consumer behavior in their study, and given
the relatively limited time frame9 of their research, decided to focus on a single
―consumption venue‖ as their chosen field site10(ibid). The impact of such ephemeral,
informal retail spaces and interactions cannot be seen, however, as being limited neither
to the mere physical location of its set-up, nor as devoid of the larger consumption
context from which it arises. The interaction that arises from the organization of such
alternative conduits of retail, as shall be explained, sometimes extends well beyond those
confined to the physical field site, and includes virtual communication as well, which
necessitates some consideration of these modes of interaction. As with any research
endeavor, fieldwork in this setting of the flea market is not without its own set of
challenges. Situated in an urban setting, amidst the hustle and bustle of the city-state of
Singapore, the idea of a bounded, single-sited field site is but a myth. ‗Traditional‘
notions of ethnography give way to one that is, in this case, not only multi-sited, but also
9
―Data collection at the consumption venue proceeded primarily through four days of observation and interviewing‖
(Belk et. al, 1988: 450).
10
The Red Mesa Swap Meet located in a largely upper-middle class residential area in Pueblo, New Mexico (Belk et.
al, 1988: 459).
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episodic. The ephemeral quality of the flea market confines and restricts the temporal
dimension of field work, but its contemporary setting in an urban locale means that field
work cannot be conducted in isolation from other goings-on in the city, making the
contextualization and linkages ever more important. Weighing both the advantages and
limitations of Belk et. al‘s naturalistic inquiry, as well as taking into consideration the
richness of data gathered by both Sherry and Maisel‘s ethnographic approach to the study
of their field settings, this study of a flea market in Singapore, as shall be discussed, has
been driven by largely by such qualitative methods of inquiry, including participantobservation, semi-structured interviews and content analysis.
2.2.1 Participant-observation
Over a period of about five months, I carried out participant-observation at flea
markets organized by flea market organizer The Flea11. By focusing on a single flea
market organizer, I hoped to concentrate on the richness of the context afforded by these
flea markets and provide the sort of ―thick description‖ so compellingly espoused by
Geertz (1973). The flea markets organized by The Flea during the length of my fieldwork
were mostly held at a night club along the Singapore River on Saturdays. These
‗sessions‘, as they are usually referred to by the organizer, vendors and shoppers alike,
took place over a period of about 6 hours each time, usually from about 2pm in the
afternoon to about 8pm in the evening, after which ‗regular‘ operations in the club
commenced. Flea markets held by The Flea were chosen as the primary field site for
11
A pseudonym has been used in place of the flea market‘s real name to protect the identities of the organizers,
vendors and shoppers who participated in this study.
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several reasons. Firstly, the periodic and ephemeral nature of the flea market necessitated
the regularity and frequency of recurrence for the gathering of sufficient data. On average,
these flea market sessions held by the organizer take place monthly or fortnightly. An
exception to this was two consecutive flea market sessions held by the organizer over a
weekend at an art gallery, in conjunction with the gallery‘s ‗open day‘. These two
‗special‘ sessions had an ‗arts and designers‘ theme, where most vendors were required to
sell some form of handicraft or visual art. Because of these two ‗special‘ sessions, the
organizer held three flea market sessions in total, the third of which was held at the usual
venue of the night club. Secondly, having started in mid-2006, The Flea was, by the time
of this study, said to be a relatively well-established and well-known flea market amongst
consumers. It was named one of Singapore ―best‖ five flea markets by a popular online
news portal. (CNNGo, 2011).
To gain a more holistic perspective into the social interaction that takes place at
this flea market, I participated both as a vendor and a shopper on separate occasions. This
was to provide me with a vendor‘s perspective of the market and an opportunity to talk to
other vendors about their flea market experiences. As a vendor, I rented a stall for a
relatively small sum from the organizer, sharing it with close friends who sold their
unwanted personal possessions such as clothing, costume jewelry, bags and footwear,
alongside mine. Like most of the other vendors who sold at this flea market, I found out
about upcoming sessions from the organizers website and social media12 updates, and
12
The organizers provide timely updates about upcoming flea market sessions via social media platforms such as
Twitter and Facebook. ‗Followers‘ who subscribe to the organizer‘s social media accounts get updates on the details
and/or changes of sessions.
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registered for a stall via email each time. Payment for the rent of the stall was initially
made via fund transfer to the organizer‘s bank account, and later on, in cash on the day of
the session, after rapport with the organizer was established. For all of the sessions during
which I participated as a vendor, I arrived at about 1.30pm to set up my stall in time for
the start of the flea market, and stayed until the end of it at about 8pm. This allowed me
to observe what took place while vendors were setting up their stalls before the start of
the flea market, as well as what went on while they were packing up after the flea market.
I also participated as a shopper at other sessions, browsing the stalls, observing
the going-ons, talking to people and sometimes striking up casual conversations. This
provided me with the shopper‘s perspective of the flea market. I also engaged the vendors
and shoppers in informal interviews at the market to have a rough gauge of how sociable
and ready people were to interact with complete strangers. As a shopper, I stayed for
several hours at each session, arriving and leaving at different timings each trip, just as a
‗regular‘ shopper would. I recorded pertinent information and quotes from the informal
interviews on paper, noting them down as soon as I had the opportunity. Extensive field
notes were also written down during or after each of the fieldwork sessions. Photographs
of the field site were also taken at opportune moments. Although Belk et. al discusses the
intrusiveness of mechanical recording methods such as photography, the ease with which
I could use my mobile phone‘s camera function ensured that my photo-taking actions did
not attract too much attention, and were not exceptionally out of the ordinary. As Belk et.
al‘s methodological proposition so necessitates, a naturalistic inquiry requires the
―interpretation of data collected in situ‖ (1988: 450). Hence, the output of such
observation, participation and interaction with others in the field in the form of field notes,
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photographs, and audio recordings serve as important sources of raw data for
interpretation and analysis (ibid).
2.2.2: Semi-structured interviews
To supplement the data collected from participant-observation and informal
interviews, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were also conducted with sixteen
participants13—seven vendors and nine shoppers14. In-depth interviews are the most
appropriate format to generate data that is explored in ―depth, nuance, complexity and
roundedness‖ that a study of the ‗action scene‘ of a flea market demands (Mason, 2005:
65).These interviews were held with both vendors and shoppers at the flea market, who
agreed to speak about their flea market experiences outside of the field. The goal was to
gather nuanced, in-depth accounts of their personal perceptions and experiences of their
time spent at the flea market, as well as to provide a better understanding of the social
context within which the vendors‘ impetus for selling, and the shoppers‘ consumption
behavior and preferences arose. I got to know the interviewees through informal
encounters and interaction over the course of participant-observation at the field site.
Interviews were scheduled at a timing and location at the interviewees‘ convenience,
usually at public places such as a quiet café. As the interviews were semi-structured,
13
See Appendix A for informant profiles.
14
Vendors and shoppers in more informal retail spaces like this flea market are not absolute, mutually exclusive
categories. Many vendors are themselves flea market shoppers during sessions when they are not selling. Similarly,
many shoppers may become vendors at the flea market due to its low barriers of entry. This fluidity highlights the
flexibility on the flea market as a retail space. However, for the purposes of analysis, I have taken these two
categories of social actors to be conceptually separate, so as to more firmly ground each perspective in the
articulation of their flea market experiences. I categorized participants as ‗vendors‘ and ‗shoppers‘ according to their
role at the time of my acquaintance with them at the flea market. At times when I was introduced to a participant
through a third party, I gave them the option of identifying themselves as either ‗vendor‘ or ‗shopper‘.
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impromptu questions about new points raised were asked when required and hence, interviews
lasted between about twenty-five minutes to about one and a half hours each time,
depending on the interviewees‘ responses and responsiveness. The identities of the
interviewees are kept strictly confidential and pseudonyms have been used in place of their real
names.
2.2.3: Content Analysis
Although Belk et. al, Maisel and Sherry limit their field sites to the physical
location of the flea markets they study, any contemporary analysis of social phenomena,
especially in an urban setting, needs to take into consideration the far and wide reaches of
content produced via new media. Social media platforms, weblogs and websites on the
internet provide a wealth of data for analysis. As The Flea uses their website and social
media accounts to publicize their flea market sessions, and are a medium through which
flea market participants can interact with one another, any study of these flea markets
cannot neglect the significance of an analysis of these modes of discourse- production.
Mason has recommended thinking of textual document analysis as ―constructions‖ that
are constitutive of social and cultural relations, rather than merely revealing facts about
them (2002: 111). An analysis of The Flea‘s official website and social media accounts
will thus provide an insight into how the organizers position the flea market vis-à-vis
their participants, giving a more holistic account of the social actors‘ interactions and
relations with one another, as well as the discourse surrounding flea markets in Singapore.
2.3 A Brief Introduction of the Field Site: Setting, Objects and Social Actors
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The Flea was started in mid-2006 by a fashion designer and a sound engineer,
both of whom describe themselves as having a strong interest and involvement in the
‗arts‘ scene in Singapore (The Flea, 2011; personal correspondence). They describe and
promote The Flea as an ―independent flea market‖ and are not a registered business,
running it as a non-profit venture outside of their full-time jobs (ibid). They serve as the
organizers of the flea market sessions, handling all aspects of its operations including but
not exhaustive of, the collection of rent, logistics, administration, publicity,
conceptualization of flea market themes and the maintenance of the flea market‘s website.
On occasions when the flea market is held at the night club—as it most frequently
is— vendors fill both indoor and outdoor stall spaces, as the flea market spans from
inside the night club to the walkway outside of it. Some of the outdoor stall spaces are
sheltered while others are not. Music is usually played outdoors from speakers set up by
the organizers, while a disc jockey ‗spins‘ music from the deejay console inside the night
club. The night club‘s bar is also open throughout the duration of each flea market
session, and serves both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Each stall is given a coupon
for the free redemption of one free drink from the bar. On a few ‗special‘ sessions, the
flea market was held at an old government building which had been turned into an art
gallery; and a café in a gentrified area on the fringes of downtown Singapore. Like the
sessions held at the night club, those held at these ‗special‘ locations also had stalls set-up
in indoor and outdoor areas of the establishment.
19
Vendors15 selling at The Flea can be categorized into three broad groups,
according to the merchandise they sell, as well as the extent of the commercial
motivations and investment behind their participation at the flea market:
i.
Owners of online businesses run online businesses (based in Singapore)
out of their weblogs (‗blogs‘) or websites and are usually selling brandnew clothing, bags, shoes and costume jewelry sourced from foreign
suppliers. Their motivations and considerations behind selling at the flea
market are largely business-driven. Most use the flea market as a platform
from which to promote their online business, and an opportunity to reach
out to potential customers.
ii.
Some of the vendors who are owners of online businesses are popularly
known as ‗blog-shop‘ owners, as they operate their businesses mainly
from their blogs or ‗blog-shops‘. Blog-shops sell mainly imported clothes,
shoes, bags and costume jewelry and operate their businesses in a distinct
fashion (Abidin, unpublished). As shall be discussed, many other owners
of online businesses who sell at the flea market also see blog-shop owners
as a conceptually distinct group of vendors. Like owners of online
businesses, however, blog-shop owners also use the flea market as a
platform to reach out to customers and to promote their businesses.
iii.
Crafters sell their handicrafts, such as costume jewelry at the flea market.
They mostly use the flea market as a platform from which they can both
15
See Chapter 4 for a more in-depth discussion on vendors
20
display and sell their products. Some of them view selling at the flea
market as a hobby and an opportunity for them to indulge in their
handicraft hobbies, while others have more business-driven attitudes
towards their participation as vendors.
iv.
Second-hand merchandise marketers sell their unwanted personal
possessions such as clothes, shoes, bags, books, costume jewelry and
knick-knacks at heavily-discounted prices, possibly at a much lesser price
than what they had paid for. Merchandise are usually displayed on
portable clothes racks and ‗bargain bins‘ at their stall. The items may be
used or brand-new, but were purchases for personal use that were not
intended for profit from resale. This group of vendors seems to be,
arguably, the least business-oriented of the lot, and mostly aim to get rid
of their old possessions by selling them cheaply at flea markets.
Shoppers at the flea market start streaming in at about 2pm, the ‗official‘ opening
time of the market, and dwindle by 8pm, the ‗official‘ closing time of the flea market.
The crowd usually thickens from about 3pm-5pm. The number of visitors to each flea
market session, however, varies with weather conditions, with rainy weather bringing in
the least number of shoppers. Most of the shoppers at the flea market look to be in their
mid-teens to late twenties, with the exception of curious passers-by and wandering
tourists. In my visits to the field site, I also observed the social interactions between
vendors and shoppers that took place and pursued some of these as topics of discussion
21
during in-depth interviews, so as to gather a better understanding of what I had observed
from the perspectives of the participants.
22
Chapter 3:
Setting the Context—Situating Flea Markets within the Retail
Landscape of Singapore
Singapore‘s economic development has been said to be a major driving force
behind the development of a consumer culture that is ―comparable to that of advanced
developed nations‖ (Chua, 2003: 3). This has created a retail environment that offers
consumers all the major fast food chains, ‗big-name‘ luxury cars and fashion labels, most
of which may be found in the ―miles and miles of shopping complexes‖ that adorn the
architectural landscape of Singapore (ibid: 35). Shopping malls have been a widelystudied phenomenon of modern capitalist societies and have been substantial in much of
the literature on consumption and the economy. Chua notes how department stores and
shopping centers have been elevated to the status of ‗dream places‘ or ‗cathedrals‘ of
contemporary consumer culture within academic social science literature (ibid). He
privileges shopping malls as ―the prime sites of research‖ (ibid: 42) for his work on
consumption culture in Singapore, and documents how the set-up and organization of
shopping malls, luxury boutiques and department stores have shaped consumer behavior
and attitudes in very particular ways. The interactions between sales staff and customers
in luxury boutiques, for example, having been shaped by the space of the retail outlet, are
also crucial in socially producing consumers of high-end fashion and establishing the
customers‘ status as a fashion-savvy consumer (ibid: 56-75). The shopping mall and the
department stores and shops within them thus constitute a visibly and seemingly
significant portion of the retail landscape in Singapore.
23
Additionally, public housing estates in Singapore have provided space for a whole
host of commercial activities, catering to the everyday material needs of residents without
them having to leave their immediate vicinities (Yeh and Yeung, 1972). The ‗selfsufficiency‘ of each housing estate has long been the Housing Development Board‘s
planning objective. Planning guidelines since the early years of the Singapore
government‘s efforts to provide public housing have ensured that ―wider-thanneighborhood needs‖ of residents are met through the stipulation on sufficient space for
commercial activities like community shopping malls, shops and food centers (ibid: 57).
The recent decade has seen an even larger increase in the number and scale of these
suburban shopping malls16, with many of them housing the same brand-name shops and
department stores17 as those in the shopping malls along the downtown Orchard Road
shopping belt. These suburban shopping malls are located within close proximity of Mass
Rapid Transit Stations and bus stops, making it highly accessible. This is in no small part
due to the government‘s efforts18 to decentralize commercial activities to the suburbs,
providing a one-stop shopping experience right at residents‘ doorsteps (Ibrahim and Leng,
2003: 179). Smaller ―mom-and-pop‖ shops located in HDB heartlands, have however, in
recent years, seen a large share of their business being taken away by bigger chain stores
16
The Northpoint Shopping Centre in Yishun New Town was the first such ‗modern‘ shopping mall to make inroads
into the housing estates (Ibrahim and Leng, 2003: 177).
17
Department stores such as Isetan and Metro, for example, can be found in shopping malls in residential estates
such as those in Tampines New Town (Tampines One mall), Sengkang (Compasspoint Shopping Centre) and
Serangoon (nex Mall).
18
The 1991 Revised Concept Plan. Urban Redevelopment Authority (2003) ‗Land use and urban planning:
Development guide plans‘, Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore. www.ura.gov.sg
24
located in shopping malls, forcing many of them to overhaul their business operations to
attract more customers, or face the threat of closure.
The ‗formal‘ retail scene in Singapore is characterized by the ubiquitous presence
of shopping malls, department stores and shops in both the downtown districts and
residential ‗heartlands‘, and significantly meet, as well as shape, the consumption culture
in Singapore. Shopping malls, however, make up just one, albeit important part of the
complex, multi-layered retail scene in Singapore. There also exists a seemingly small and
less conspicuous but no less vibrant, interesting and exciting ‗informal‘ retail scene in
Singapore.
3.1: The ‘Formal’ and the ‘Informal’—Dichotomy or Spectrum?
Indeed, the line between ‗formal‘ and ‗informal‘ retail settings begs some
explanation and exploration. Several authors have discussed the characterization of
‗formal‘ and ‗informal‘ forms of retail. Informality is sometimes described as being in
direct opposition to formal forms of retail. Stone, Horne and Hibbert (1996), for example,
describe garage sales, arts and crafts fairs, swap meets and flea markets as ―alternative,
flexible retail formats‖ that can be seen as ―unearthed relics of simple, more direct
exchange processes that have gained new impetus and have challenged the more
bureaucratic, larger scale retail organizations‖ (ibid: 5-6). Such a description then implies
that ‗formal‘, ‗mainstream‘ retail formats are modern, complex and rigid. Clifford Geertz
(1963), in his account of commerce in Modjokuto, makes a similar distinction between
the formal ―firm-type economy‖ and the informal ―bazaar economy‖. The former is
described as having ―formal organizational innovation, the permanence of business
25
organization, the reliability of relationships with producers and distributors, and the
expansion of the urban public market‖, while the latter is ―a world of dubious goods,
nameless shops, and poor market signaling‖ (Geertz, 1963: 58 from Fanselow, 1990:
261).
Turning towards more fluid descriptions of retail settings, other categorizations
have been left more open-ended and contextual. Cross and Morales (2007) have criticized
previously-rigid definitions and descriptions that distinguished informal and formal retail
settings as mutually exclusive categories that existed in absolute opposition and hierarchy
to each other. By thinking about how retail settings like street markets are not formal, we
run the risk of what Cross and Morales call ―formalomorphism—the tendency to reify a
formal category, retail trade, and diagnose problems with street markets or other residual
activities as if it were a bad copy of the privileged category instead on appreciating the,
for what they are and what they do contribute to society and the economy‖ (ibid: 9).
Instead, Cross and Morales propose that informality in retail and trade be seen not as a
violation of rules, but as ―a particular way in which people interact‖, promoting ―the
spirit of survival and flexibility‖, and existing alongside other systems of economic
activity (ibid). Similarly, Sherry (1990a: 15-18) working from a consumer research
perspective has provided a framework for understanding these forms of marketplace
structures and functions. Instead of looking at ‗formal‘ and ‗informal‘ retail settings as
dichotomous and mutually exclusive, however, Sherry has very usefully suggested that
the structural dimension of the marketplace be seen as belonging to a continuum between
‗formal-informal‘ dialectic, where the ‗formal‘ end is characterized as ―official,
controlled, highly rationalized, proactive and institutional‖, while the ‗informal‘ end is
26
viewed as ―less official (often clandestine), less controlled, less rationalized, reactive, and
transient in nature‖ (ibid: 16). Additionally, Sherry discusses the functional dimension of
the marketplace in his framework, as existing along a continuum between an ―economicfestive‖ dialectic. The ―economic‖ function is characterized by ―notions of rationality
utility‖ while the ―festive‖ function is ―hedonic and experiential in nature‖ (ibid). Both
the formal-informal dialectic and the economic-festive dialectic intersect, forming a
variety of marketplace structures and functions under which retail settings can be
characterized. Sherry has also elsewhere used the term ―alternative conduit‖ to refer to
the ―ecology, social structure, and ideology of transactions that occur outside of the
conventional conduit typically studied by marketers‖ to refer to particular types of
marketplace organization (1990b: 177).For Sherry then, retail set-ups may be
characterized in a multi-dimensional and fluid manner that takes into account not only the
structure (formal-informal), but also, the function (economic-festive), and are highly
contextual phenomena that cannot be rigidly defined.
3.2: The Alternative Retail Scene in Singapore
Adopting both Cross and Morales‘ and Sherry‘s conceptual fluidity in describing
‗informality‘, I will now turn to Singapore‘s retail and trade context. Several types of
such alternative, informal retail spaces may be found in Singapore. These include, but are
not exhaustive of ‗local‘ night markets (pasar malam), the Sungei Road Thieves‘ market
and event-based flea markets. To better understand the flea markets studied in this
research, it is pertinent to first provide an overview of the ‗informal‘, ‗alternative‘ retail
27
scene in Singapore, and to identify the characteristics of some of the other types of
markets so as not to conflate these different kinds of alternative retail spaces.
3.2.1: Typology of Alternative Retail in Singapore
i.
The night market, or pasar malam (‗pasar‘ meaning ‗market‘ and ‗malam‘ meaning night
in the Malay language) is a form of retailing activity commonly found in many parts of
Southeast Asia (Ibrahim and Leng, 2003: 178). The first night markets in Singapore were
apparently started in 1953 by a group of hawkers that followed the performing schedules
of street opera troupes, selling wherever and whenever they performed (ibid). After a ban
was imposed in 1978 due to efforts to regulate hygiene standards and curb pollution, the
pasar malam was reintroduced to housing estates in 1991 to ―revive‖ these older
residential areas (ibid). It is now typically found throughout most public housing estates
or residential ‗heartlands‘ of Singapore (ibid). These night markets are usually lined
along pavements by the side of roads and/or at the void decks under Singapore‘s many
public housing apartment blocks, and are often thought of as features of residential
heartlands. As the name suggests, the pasar malam operates in the evening and late into
the night. These markets are characterized by the mobile nature of their stalls and usually
last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks in a particular estate before moving to
others. They consist of various hawkers selling a mélange of goods at their respective
stalls. The goods sold at these night markets include, but is not exhaustive of, cookedfood, fruit, clothes, electronic devices, music compact discs, children‘s toys and
household items. Most of the goods sold at the pasar malam are brand new but known to
be lowly-priced, highly affordable, of relatively low quality and catering more to the
28
everyday, domestic needs of residents. The continued presence of the pasar malam in
public housing estates is also attributed to its ―fund-raising capability‖ for various
grassroots organizations (Ibrahim and Leng, 2003: 179).
ii.
The Sungei Road Thieves’ market in Singapore has been recently described as
―Singapore‘s oldest flea market‖ 19(eTour Singapore, 2009; CNNGo, 2010), ―dodgy‖ and
―a step back into the 1950s for the wandering tourist‖ (CNNGo, 2011). However, unlike
the type of flea markets that is of interest in this paper, the Sungei Road market sells a
range of second-hand goods that many associate with cast-offs. The market gets its name
from its location along the banks of the Rochor River in Singapore (―sungei‖ meaning
―river‖ in the Malay language). As the name also suggests, the market was once known
for its sale of stolen goods, and is a throwback to its start in the 1930s as a meeting point
for criminals to hawk their ill-gotten goods (CNNGo, 2010). The market is also run
mainly by middle-aged or old men. The market still exists today and operates regularly as
a gathering ground for vendors, selling an eclectic mix of bric-a-brac items ranging from
old soda bottles, religious amulets, vinyl records and old electrical goods (ibid). Having a
long history that has spanned across generations of Singaporeans, the market has also
been somewhat of a permanent fixture as it is open on all days of the week, albeit most
vibrant and lively during the weekends (CNNGo, 2011). It has therefore, none of the
sorts of ephemeral qualities of time and space associated with the flea markets in this
paper.
19
The space of the market has, unfortunately, been halved by authorities in light of the construction of the Mass
Rapid Transit‘s Circle Line, and has because of this, resulted in its vendors jostling for space, something virtually
unheard of in the flea market‘s history. (―Vendors at Sungei Rd flea market fight for space‖, www.
channelnewsasia.com, 25th July 2011).
29
3.2.2: ‗Flea Markets‘ in Singapore
There has been little consensus over and discussion about what actually
constitutes a ‗flea market‘, even in literature that explicitly studies such field sites. Miller
(1988) notes that the term ―flea market‖ arose with the beginning of the Paris Flea
Market around 1870, where ―broken furniture, rags and used mattresses, which were
called ‗flea bags‘ in slang‖, were sold, hence giving the market its name (from Schneider,
1960: 62-63; Austin and Torbin, 1973). The term has since been loosely and broadly used,
it seems, to describe open-air or semi-open-air marketplaces of a periodic nature. To
avoid running the risk of over-generalization, this paper recognizes that ‗flea markets‘ are
by no means a homogenous category. There are many informal retail spaces which do not
identify themselves as ‗flea markets‘, but that share some similarities with this relatively
informal form of retail set-up. The Islamic bazaar found in various parts of the Middle
East, for example, has had a long history and have existed for centuries along ancient
trade routes (Weiss, 1998). Belonging to the ‗bazaar economy‘, as its name suggests, the
Islamic bazaar, like its ‗Western‘ counterpart of the flea market, is based heavily on faceto-face transactions in the marketplace and is also relatively mobile in its set-up.
However, its origins as hubs of trade and commerce between merchants differ from the
apparently more ‗bohemian‘ and less business-oriented origins of the Paris (‗Western‘)
flea market.
30
Most of the literature on ‗flea markets‘ have thus been based on research in
‗Western‘ contexts and societies, belying the fact that ‗non-Western‘ societies20 have also
in recent years, adopted the term to describe markets in their locales. The Sungei Road
Thieves‘ Market in Singapore, for example, has been described as Singapore‘s oldest flea
market. Many different ‗flea markets‘ have also been widely-publicized by the media in
Singapore, and these range from markets selling handicrafts by up-and-coming local
artists and designers21, to fashion-related events held within shopping malls22, adding yet
another layer of complexity to the local retail scene (CNNGo, 2011; Urban, 2011).
However, the setup, organization, duration, frequency, types of things sold, participating
social actors and their motivations all differ largely from market to market, and even
more so from that of the flea market chosen for this study. Broadly speaking, having none
of the long history of the other two types of markets, the type of flea markets which The
Flea belongs to, is a relatively new phenomenon and a conceptual category of its own.
These flea markets are event-based, held over weekends and usually only last for less
than a day (about six or seven hours) at a time, at locations all over Singapore. These
locations include night clubs, museums and gentrified areas of Singapore popular with
20
I recognize that the terms ‗Western‘ and ‗non-Western‘ are highly contested and problematic in reality. However,
I have chosen to use the terms here in a loosely to point out the lack of research done on ‗flea markets‘ outside of
what is considered ‗developed‘ economies such as the United States, Britain and New Zealand. Although Singapore
is considered by many to be a ‗developed‘ economy and is in many ways ‗Western‘, the nation-state still considers
itself ‗Asian‘ and ‗non-Western‘.
21
The Market of Artists and Designers (more popularly known as MAAD), offers ―unique art pieces‖ of ―handmade
jewelry‖ by budding local artists and designers. Prices are said to be higher than ―normal‖ flea market bargains.
(Urban, 25 March 2011).
22
The Green & Gorgeous Earth Hour Fashion Party, for example, was a ―flea market‖ held in conjunction with
Earth Hour, a environmentally-friendly initiative, and Fashion Season@Orchard, an event promoting fashion in
Singapore along the Orchard Road shopping belt, and was a swap event where participants exchanged used items of
their clothing (Urban, 25 March 2011).
31
the young and yuppies, such as Dempsey Hill. They are also run by a central organizer
that rents stalls out to interested vendors and promotes these flea market events through
online blogs and websites. Examples of these organizers include ‗Flea-tique!‘, ‗Flea
Titan‘ and ‗The Flea‘. As these flea markets seem to target and attract youth, it is forming
a small but vibrant part of youth and popular culture in Singapore.
Other types of informal retail spaces that have surfaced in the literature include street
fairs, farmers‘ markets (Petrocci, 1981), car boot sales (Crewe and Gregson, 1997; 1998;
Hibbert, Horne and Stone, 1996) and garage or yard sales (Hermann and Soiffer, 1984;
Hermann, 1996; 1997; 2003 & 2004). All these types of alternative retail spaces, as
mentioned in the literature, are found in the United States of America and the United
Kingdom but unlike the flea market, have not caught on in Singapore due to various
reasons. For example, with most of its population living in public housing flats due to
land-size constraints, garage or yard sales as they are held in suburban USA are
practically not feasible in Singapore. Car boot sales have surfaced recently in Singapore
but because it is held relatively infrequently (SG Car Boot Sales, 2009), I have not
chosen to focus on them.
3.3 The State of the ‘Field’—The Flea23
The primary field site of this study—The Flea, occupies a unique position within
the retail context in Singapore. It is not strictly a ‗brick-and-mortar‘ business in that it
does not operate out of a purpose-built structure meant for retail activities like shopping
malls are. It is also clearly ephemeral and has no fixed operating hours like shopping
23
Pseudonym
32
malls do. To better understand how The Flea is situated within the local retail scene, it is
first pertinent to consider some of its history, motivations behind its start, as well as how
it attempts to distinguish itself from other self-identified flea markets in Singapore.
The Flea is a self-described ‗independent flea market‘. Its founders, Jess24, a
fashion designer and Troy, a sound artist, both in their twenties, claim to be inspired by
similar markets in other countries like Australia and those in Europe. Seeing a lack of
such spaces in Singapore, they wanted to introduce the ―culture of flea markets‖ to the
local retail scene in the way that they had experienced it during their travels abroad. This
meant that they started The Flea in mid-2006 without any intention of profiting from it,
but rather, saw it as a space ―for artists, designers, people with their own stuff‖ to
―showcase‖ their work and a ―platform for unique items to have a space‖. Jess and Troy
thus have their own ideas of what a flea market is and stands for, and this is translated
into their conception of The Flea. They describe and promote The Flea as an ―Indie, Electric Flea Market‖ and are not a registered business, running it as a non-profit venture
outside of their full-time jobs. They also see The Flea as a pioneer in the flea market
scene in Singapore, and claim that their concept has been mimicked, to different degrees
of (un)success, by other organizers. Both Jess and Troy serve as the organizers of the flea
market sessions, handling all aspects of its operations including but not exhaustive of, the
collection of rent, logistics, administration, publicity, conceptualization of flea market
themes and the maintenance of the flea market‘s website.
24
Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identities of the participants in this study.
33
When it first started, The Flea was apparently nothing more than a casual
gathering of a group of artists and designers who had, upon the suggestion of Jess and
Troy, agreed to come together on weekend afternoons to display and possibly sell their
work. Jess explains the initial flea market sessions held by The Flea:
Mainly it popped up when our friends were all designing something . . . or
coming up with new sounds for bands . . . (those of us) who don‘t (didn‘t)
have a space and a platform to showcase our things . . .so we just got
together and decided this is what we wanted to do. We did it out of sheer
fun . . . (we thought) all of us (could be) getting together on Saturdays,
having cheap beers, get (getting) the music we like and express
(expressing) what we want to do . . . that‘ll be perfect.
This spirit of ―sheer fun‖ that was the impetus behind the flea market‘s birth corresponds
closely with Sherry‘s ‗festive‘ function of the marketplace along the economic-festive
dialectic. Conceptualizing of the flea market as a place and space where friends could
gather on weekends to share their art work and partake in conviviality by sharing
affordable alcohol—―cheap beers‖—the festive function of the marketplace seems to be a
dominant dialectical dimension in its founder‘s discussion of its origins. Rather than an
explicitly commercial venture, The Flea started off as a place for ‗showcasing‘ works of
‗art‘ by ―designers‖ and ―bands‖, who needed an outlet to display their work.
Additionally, the founders of The Flea have also, like Miller (1988) consciously
drawn from ‗Western‘ origins and definitions of the flea market in Paris, and have chosen
to emphasize the non-profiting motivations and artistic aspects of flea market history,
serving as a ‗founding principle‘ for the current running of The Flea. Jess elaborates on
her belief:
34
Actually, flea markets started in Paris, like what we call hippies and hobos
they‘ll just come onto the street and sell their wares, whatever that may be,
be it their art, their music, whatever they have left in their luggage so that
they can buy their next meal.
With no intention of profiting from the flea market, its economic function, with its
rationality and utility, is in contrast, not emphasized as an identifiable characteristic of
the flea market, but rather, only a secondary motivation. This ‗non-economic‘ function
and non-profit-making motive of the flea market is best expressed when flea markets are
contrasted with what the market‘s founders describe to be profit-making ―bazaars‖, as
Jess explains:
When we go around and we see events (where people ask) like ‗How
much did you earn today?‘, ‗How much can I earn if I‘m here?‘ or ‗How
much can I sell?‘ . . . they (other organizers) use the term ‗flea market‘,
quote unquote flea market, as a platform to make sales. That I will say, is
something we don‘t encourage. So it‘s a very fine line to becoming a
bazaar but I think because of the various elements that we included and
how we started and how we are not aggressive . . . in advocating it in that
(profit-making) way. Many people have that misconception and call any
form of gathering a flea market.
In naming itself a ‗flea market‘, the founders of The Flea had certain pre-conceived
notions of what the term entails and what role they want their market to play within the
local retail context. To Jess, structural similarities between the bazaar and the flea market
gave way to functional differences in motivation. Though the bazaar is ephemeral and
make-shift like the flea market, it is thought to differ greatly in terms of motivations, with
the former being concerned with profiting economically from its set-up and operating
under what Jess sees as the ‗guise‘ of a flea market. The explicitly and overtly moneymaking aspect of the bazaar is seen as the ―fine line‖ that separates the two types of
marketplaces.
35
Indeed, this overt aversion to outright profiting from the flea market and the
desire for it to be, instead, a leisurely and pleasurable experience, is reflected in how the
organizers choose the market locations. Jess explains:
That‘s why we always try to select locations that are fluid, more spacious,
where people take their time, take the day off, have a chance to smell the
roses and you know, enjoy themselves, meet new people, make new
friends and things like that. And not (think) like ‗How much is that? I
want it cheaper.‘ (when wanting to buy something) or ‗How much did I
earn (from setting up a stall at the flea market)?‘.
The festive aspect of the market is coupled with its structural informality. In choosing
―fluid, more spacious locations‖ that the organizers think will provide for a more
amicable atmosphere that encourages social interaction, and the fact that The Flea takes
place on a periodic, ephemeral basis, an informal marketplace structure, one that is ―less
official . . . less controlled, reactive, and transient in nature‖ (Sherry, 1990a: 16), seems
to be the presiding dialectical dimension. This mobility and non-fixity of its set-up is an
important indicator of the extent of informality and flexibility with which the flea market
operates its retail activity, and is a key distinguishing characteristic from other more
formal and institutionalized retail formats. The relative structural informality provided by
this non-fixity of venue thus allows the organizers the freedom to choose the flea market
locations and take advantage of each space in a dynamic way that encourages the festive
dimension of its function.
3.4 Conclusion
Having provided an overview of the retail scene in Singapore, as well as a
discussion of the categories of ‗formal‘ and ‗informal‘ retail spaces, I have sought to
36
situate the primary field site of this study, The Flea, within the larger context, so as to
allow for a better understanding of the terms used to describe it, as well as the types of
categories which it is often thought to fall under. The ‗formal-informal‘ distinction is not
always a clear one to delineate, and as has been proposed by Sherry, as well as Cross and
Morales, are more fluid than static in practice. By looking at ‗The Flea‘ through Sherry‘s
framework along the structural ‗formal-informal‘ dialectic, as well as the functional
‗economic-festive‘ dialectic, an understanding of the type of ‗alternative‘ retail that it is,
may be reached. The informal retail scene in Singapore, as has been discussed, is varied,
and while flea markets reside within that sphere of economic activity, they are by no
means homogenous. The founding ‗visions‘ of The Flea have afforded it a unique place
within the flea market landscape in Singapore, and serve to inform both vendors and
shoppers of The Flea, about the type of retail space they sell and shop at respectively.
This, as will be explored in the coming chapters, may serve to influence participants‘
interactions and conceptions of the flea market, and it is to this that we now turn.
37
Chapter 4: Negotiating Between the Informal and Formal—Vendors
and Contestations of Quality and Authenticity
As one of the main social actors in the field site that is the flea market, vendors
(or ‗sellers‘)—people who sell their wares, whatever they might be, at the flea market,
reveal significant insights behind the workings of such forms of retail set-up. As
participants of what is often considered ‗non-mainstream‘ economic activity, flea market
vendors may not necessarily adhere to the same principles and motivations that guide
retailers operating within more formal systems of economic activity. Whether with
intentions to seek their fortunes or otherwise, those who sell in more informal retail
settings have often been described to adopt different approaches in their participation in
such forms of economic activity. Cross and Morales (2007), and others in the same
volume, for example, have commended the remarkable levels of resourcefulness,
flexibility, innovation and ingenuity that vendors of street markets have come to develop
in face of obstacles from governmental authorities and economic downturns. De Bruin
and Dupuis (2000) have also documented how the economic downturn in New Zealand
saw people turning to selling at flea markets as a financial coping strategy. Similarly,
Fanselow (1990) notes how adaptive ‗sellers‘ in the Kalakkadu bazaar are, as they
negotiate their way around existing market conditions to develop a logical system of
running their businesses without ever fully adopting any of the processes associated with
formal economic activity.
Additionally, the things being sold in the flea market may also serve as conduits
through which these ‗behind-the-scenes‘ dynamics are played out. Kopytoff (1986)
theorizing on ―the cultural biographies of things‖, for example, has noted how some
38
things may be ‗born‘ as commodities, while others have the ‗commodity status‘ thrust
upon them. Yet others may go through singularization processes that seek to imbue them
with more personal and restricted characteristics. All this have an impact on the way the
things sold in the flea market are valued and subsequently priced, and may, as will be
explored, bring to fore many tensions, negotiations and relations surrounding economic
exchange.
4.1: A Background of the Flea Market Vendors
The Flea has, over the years attracted a variety of participants, who have joined as
vendors, to their flea market sessions. Most of the vendors found out about the flea
market through The Flea‘s website, social media pages such as Facebook and Twitter,
and others through word of mouth from peers. Most of the vendors interviewed have,
previously, participated in flea markets held by other organizers at a variety of locations.
Some participate regularly, with a frequency of as often as once a week, as vendors at
flea markets all around the country. For these vendors, ‗flea marketing‘ is a weekly
activity and The Flea just one of the many along their ‗circuit‘ of flea markets. Other
vendors participate with less frequency, ranging from about once every few months to
once a month. Most of the vendors hold full-time jobs outside of their selling at flea
markets. As flea markets take place mostly over weekends, none of the vendors spoken to
have quit their day jobs to sell at flea markets on a full-time basis, and do not depend on
their earnings at the flea market as a main source of livelihood.
39
Vendors selling at the flea market may be categorized into four broad groups,
according to the merchandise they sell, as well as the extent of the commercial
motivations and investments behind their participation at the flea market:
1. Owners of online businesses run online businesses (based in Singapore) out of
their weblogs (‗blogs‘) or websites and are usually selling brand-new clothing,
bags, shoes and costume jewelry sourced from foreign suppliers. Their
motivations and considerations behind selling at the flea market are largely
business-driven. Most use the flea market as a platform from which to
promote their online business, and an opportunity to reach out to potential
customers.
Daisy, in her early 20s, owns an online business outside of her full-time job as an
executive. Her online ‗shop‘ sells vintage clothing and accessories. To ‗get the
word out‘ about her online ‗shop‘, she participates in flea markets where she sells
her goods and gives out name cards bearing her shop‘s website to promote her
business. The bulk of her revenue for her business does not come from what she
sells at the flea markets, but from purchases on her website.
2.
Some of the vendors who are owners of online businesses are popularly
known as ‗blog-shop‘ owners, as they operate their businesses mainly from their
blogs or ‗blog-shops‘. Blog-shops sell mainly imported clothes, shoes, bags and
costume jewelry and operate their businesses in a distinct fashion (Abidin, 2011).
As shall be discussed, many other owners of online businesses who sell at the flea
market also see blog-shop owners as a conceptually distinct group of vendors.
40
Like owners of online businesses, however, blog-shop owners also use the flea
market as a platform to reach out to customers and to promote their businesses.
One such blog-shop owner is Michelle, in her early 20s. Michelle started her
blog-shop about a year ago, selling ladies‘ clothes, bags and shoes she buys from
Bangkok and China, for a profit. A large part of her business‘s revenue is
generated from sales made by customers through her blog, but she uses the flea
market as a means to promote her blog-shop, taking part about four to five times a
year.
3.
Crafters sell their handicrafts, such as costume jewelry at the flea market.
They mostly use the flea market as a platform from which they can both display
and sell their products. Some of them view selling at the flea market as a hobby
and an opportunity for them to indulge in their handicraft hobbies, while others
have more business-driven attitudes towards their participation as vendors.
Becky, for example, sells handmade costume jewelry at the flea market and sees
her craft as a hobby. She uses the flea market as a platform to get some money out
of what she does by selling her handicrafts, but does not depend on it as a primary
source of income. She is, however, exploring the possibility of developing what
she does into a viable business opportunity.
4.
Second-hand merchandise marketers sell their unwanted personal
possessions such as clothes, shoes, bags, books, costume jewelry and knickknacks at heavily-discounted prices, possibly at a much lesser price than what
41
they had paid for. Merchandise are usually displayed on portable clothes racks
and ‗bargain bins‘ at their stall. The items may be used or brand-new, but were
purchases for personal use that were not intended for profit from resale. This
group of vendors seems to be, arguably, the least business-oriented of the lot, and
mostly aim to get rid of their old possessions by selling them cheaply at flea
markets.
Ingrid, a fashion designer in her early thirties, uses the flea market to ―get rid of‖
her old stuff, mostly items of clothing and some books, at prices as low as three
dollars. She claims her main aim is to clear possessions that she does not use
anymore, and has no intention of profiting from the sale of these items.
The above four categories of vendors are by no means mutually exclusive. There are, for
example, crafters who are also owners of online businesses, selling what they make as a
hobby online and using the flea market to promote their both their crafts and their website
selling them. The fact that vendors may fall into more than one category at a time is what
makes flea market vendors interesting as social actors.
4.2: The Economic Function of the Flea Market in Singapore
The ‗informal sector‘, with its relative flexibility, has been known to afford its
participants an adaptivity and ease of entry unavailable to those in the apparently more
rigid ‗formal sector‘. Although the informal sector offers ―no universal panacea to
problems of poverty‖ for acutely impoverished economies, it does provide opportunities
for job creation and supplementary sources of income (Dewar and Watson, 1990: 7).
42
Often displaying characteristics of this ‗informal sector‘, the flea market has also been
described as ―a flexible socioeconomic arena that presents people with opportunities for
adapting to changes in their lives‖, providing ―a multitude of opportunities for vendors to
make their livelihood‖ (Godoy, Halsall, LaLone and Matthews, 1993: 2). De Bruin and
Dupuis (in Cross and Morales (eds.), 2007: 245-261), for example, have also documented
how the Otara Flea Market in New Zealand has provided a platform for the local
community to adapt to the changing economy, by serving as a means through which the
unemployed can earn a livelihood.
Although the dependence of Singapore‘s economy on its informal sector is
quantitatively negligible, alternative retail set-ups like flea markets are nevertheless
incorporated, rather interestingly, into the economic strategies of those who participate in
it. Indeed many of the vendors selling at The Flea have taken advantage of this flexibility
afforded by the flea market set-up as part of their economic strategy as both entrepreneurs
and consumers of the larger economy.
4.2.1: At the crossroads of the ‗formal‘ and ‗informal‘: Entrepreneurs selling at the flea
market as a business strategy
The system and set-up of flea market operations in Singapore satisfies the
practical considerations of vendors looking to profit from what they sell. For starters, the
process of applying for and obtaining a stall at the flea market is a simple, straightforward
and hassle-free one. Upon finding out details of the upcoming flea market session,
interested vendors may email the organizers to ‗reserve‘ a stall. Upon the successful
application of a stall, as acknowledged by the organizers‘ reply via email, vendors have a
43
30-hour window period to make a bank transfer25 of the rent amount of S$50 to the
organizers‘ bank account. This ease and convenience with which interested parties may
obtain a stall at upcoming flea market sessions and the low cost of entry makes for a
sound business decision for small businesses with looking to sell their products. Becky
explains her use of the flea market:
Flea markets, I feel, provide very different people an opportunity to sell
their products. So people like for me, and I believe there are many others
who don‘t want to incur the permanent fixed costs under the rent of retail
shops, would go to flea markets to promote their products.
Daisy concurs:
I think usually online shop owners, the reason why they do (operate)
online is because they don‘t have the means to set up the (a physical) shop
(of their own).
For vendors like Becky and Daisy who own small start-up businesses, renting a stall at a
flea market makes for sound ‗business sense‘ as the low fixed costs of rent and the
ephemeral nature of the flea market allows for economic practicality and flexibility. From
a business point of view, owners of small businesses with limited start-up capital and
resources can use the flea market as an avenue through which they can ‗promote‘ what
they are selling. With minimal financial commitment afforded by the low cost of rent of
the flea market stall and the fact that vendors are able to rent stalls on a ‗per session‘
rather than long term basis, small business owners are able to bypass ―the permanent
fixed costs‖ of rent from more formal channels of retail, to reach out to their target
customers. Indeed, flea markets have been credited to provoke a ―revival of
25
Transfers are made either through internet banking services or through Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
44
entrepreneurial impulses at work‖ in society‖ (Maisel, 1974: 489). Baum and Spitzer
(1995: 27), highlighting the economic benefits of such informal forms of retail, also note
that public markets ―offer a unique environment‖ in which ―the fledgling entrepreneur
with limited resources‖ can sell their products. Flea markets, very much like public
markets, are ―natural business incubators‖ that offer small, affordable spaces for small
businesses that cannot otherwise afford the financial commitment of a formal, brick-andmortar shop space, an opportunity to reach out directly to potential customers (ibid: 28).
The low cost of entry for small business owners to be vendors at the flea market is
also accompanied by the perceived specificity of the target group of shoppers that The
Flea attracts, as Becky further elaborates:
It‘s a very specified market where people are looking to be different from
the other one (each other). You don‘t want to be carrying the same bag as
the other one (someone else), (and) you don‘t want to be wearing the same
accessories (costume jewelry) as the other one (someone else). And I feel
(that) this market of people will be catered for at the fleas (flea markets),
instead of retailers (in shopping malls) . . . (as it is) not a mass market kind
of thing.
Vendors believe that the flea market is able to attract a niche market of consumers—
―people who are looking to be different‖ from others—who will appreciate what they
have on offer. This group of consumers is believed to not be adequately catered for by
more ‗traditional‘ and ‗formal‘ forms of retail, which is, conversely, believed to cater to a
―mass market‖. Ibrahim and Leng (2003: 185) note that even though suburban shopping
malls and pasar malams exist alongside each other in the residential heartlands of
Singapore, ―they have their own niches that attract different shoppers to patronize them
respectively‖. The pasar malam‘s strengths are thought to lie in the affordable prices of
45
the goods it sells, the ability to bargain and its ―festive/carnival atmosphere‖, while the
suburban shopping mall is preferred by consumers for its ―comfortable and protected
atmosphere‖ (ibid). Similarly, the flea market is thought to attract consumers who seek to
differentiate themselves through their articles of clothing, such as ―bags‖ and
―accessories‖—consumers who have fallen through the cracks of conventional ―mass
market‖ retailing. This is in turn taken advantage of by its vendors who seek to position
what they sell to ‗capture‘ this market not catered for by ‗traditional‘ retail.
Many of the vendors at the flea market are small business owners who have taken
advantage of the ―economization of transaction costs‖ afforded not only by the low cost
of rent, but also by the absence of complex regulations which govern ‗conventional‘
forms of retail (de Bruin and Dupuis, 1999 from de Bruin and Dupuis from Cross and
Morales (eds), 2007: 256). The flea market has thus been incorporated as an economic
strategy for small businesses, especially web-based retail businesses, to reach out to their
customers. The flea market, rather than just an ‗irrational‘ remnant of the often-criticized
‗informal‘ sector, has in this case, demonstrated many of the traits present in formal
businesses. It is commonplace, for instance, to see vendors hand out ‗name cards‘ for
their businesses to browsers and customers at their stalls during the flea market sessions,
in a bid to promote their businesses. The designs on the name cards are usually bold and
colorful, and contain information such as the name and logo of their business, website
address, email address and mobile phone number. Most vendors also make the effort to
hand out these name cards to interested shoppers personally, making eye contact, often
smiling and pointing out the website address. The use of name cards suggests a conscious
effort on the part of the vendors, to expand their customer base by marketing and
46
differentiating themselves from competitors—undoubtedly a formal business sector
characteristic. Ironically, the absence of financial commitment afforded by the low cost
of rent and the ease of transaction (both key economic considerations for ‗formal‘
businesses) is a result of the informality of the flea market set-up—vendors are able to
pay rent on a ‗pay-per-use‘ basis precisely because of its ephemeral nature. The flea
market then, presents an interesting intersection between the formal and the informal
economy, and is a space where the two interact with synergistic energy. Like the vendors
operating in the flea market studied by de Bruin and Dupuis, those of The Flea have, in
their use of the flea market as part of their business strategies, highlighted the
―definitional inadequacies of subsectoral analyses that do not recognize the interwoven
nature of the formal and informal sectors‖ (2000: 63). Even in a retail environment like
Singapore‘s, where shopping malls are a dime a dozen and arguably, the go-to destination
for consumers in need of both material and tangible goods, as well as for recreation, the
presence of pockets of alternative retail set-ups such as flea markets clearly demonstrate
the inadequacy of simplistically demarcating the formal from informal spheres. Smallscale economic activities, like those operated by the small web-based business owners
who sell at the flea market, do not operate in separate economic circuits from larger,
more formal ones (Dewar and Watson, 1990: 3).The rigid distinction between the
‗formal‘ and ‗informal‘ sector is but mere theoretical artifice that, as demonstrated, finds
little resonance in reality.
4.2.2: Threats to ‗Quality‘ and ‗Authenticity‘: The Problem with Blog-shop Vendors and
their Mass-produced Garments
47
It has also been suggested that more recognition be given to these linkages which
exist between the formal and informal economic sectors (ibid: 4). Some have cited the
benign relationship between the sectors, emphasizing the crucial role played by the
informal sector in the circulation process by, for example, being near customers and
selling in quantities as required—seen as complementary to the formal sector (ibid).
There are those, on the other hand, who argue that the relationship between the formal
and informal sectors is largely exploitative and thrive on unequal exchange and regional
inequality, and that policies should exist to ease these detrimental linkages (ibid). The
relationship between the said field site of the flea market and the ‗formal‘ economic
sector in Singapore, however, seems to be even less clear cut than what has been
suggested.
With the organizers‘ insistence that their flea market remains a ‗non-profit‘
initiative that aims to provide a space for local artistic expression, it is often a challenge
to attempt to strike a delicate balance between these founding principles and the vendors‘
more commercial pursuits. This often results in somewhat of a tension between
objectives. The relationship between the flea market and more conventional modes of
business is neither complementary nor exploitative, but rather, one that requires constant
negotiation between organizers and vendors, as well as amongst vendors themselves.
This tension is brought to fore most explicitly when blog-shop owners, who sell at the
flea market, are involved. Jess, one of the founding partners of the flea market explains
one of the ways this negotiation between the organizer and vendors plays out:
48
(One of the ways that we keep the artistic) integrity (of the flea market) is that we
actually secretly try to steer away from applicants (for stalls) that we know are
(owners of) blog shops.
This is echoed by other owners of online businesses who rent stalls at the flea market.
Daisy, an owner of an online business selling ‗vintage‘ clothing and handmade
accessories explains her contempt at her business being ‗lumped‘ in the same category as
blog-shops:
Because most, I would say most, blog-shops initially . . . start out with
mass produced clothes, meaning they import, to my knowledge, from
Guangzhou or Bangkok. . . And initially it was pretty okay . . . I do (did)
buy (from blog-shops) sometimes . . . But a lot of them… I didn‘t realize
there are so many of them until I popped by (at flea markets all over
Singapore) and there are so many (previously) unknown ones. And they
are all selling similar stuff. And the quality is not (Pause) . . . Not that I
don‘t like them but I don‘t like it when people lump a shop that has quality
clothing to (with) a mass-produced shop because they will just expect . . .
it to be cheap. Locals (Singaporeans) tend to associate online stuff to blogshops regardless of whether you have a blog or not. They associate blog
stuff to cheap (stuff). Doesn‘t matter whether the quality is good or not . . .
It‘s definitely going to affect the sales but you can‘t help it because that‘s
just the way it is for (the) local flea scene.
Ingrid, a second-hand merchandise marketer, concurs:
Most of it is very blog shop… very poor quality blog shop. I mean, blog
shop generally is poor quality clothes . . . I mean, represents poor quality
clothes.
It has been widely reported that blog-shops sell apparel sourced from ―various regional
countries‖ (The Straits Times, Urban, 2010 from Abidin, 2011), where the cost of
manufacturing is low, allowing for a wide range of designs and relatively low selling
price. Although the relatively low prices of apparel offered by blog-shops are not the sole
selling point and marketing strategy used by blog shops, it is nevertheless widely seen as
a defining characteristic. The presence of vendors who are blog-shop owners and who
49
sell their ‗mass-produced‘ clothing at the flea market is, firstly, not only seen as a threat
to the organizer‘s ‗artistic integrity‘, but secondly, also seen to adversely affect consumer
perceptions of the quality and expected prices of other products sold at the flea market by
vendors like Daisy, who insist on the high standards of ‗quality‘ of her products. This
tension caused by the blog shop owners at the flea market highlights two important issues
surrounding such forms of retail—firstly, the ‗quality‘ of the goods sold; and secondly,
‗authenticity‘ of the flea market, both of which are widely regarded as important
attributes of what the flea market should offer.
Quality
Fanselow notes that goods sold in the bazaar economy have ―no verifiable and
reliable standards of quality‖ and that ―since standards of quality are difficult to verify,
there is a general uncertainty about what exactly is adulterated‖, leading to ―an
atmosphere of suspicion‖ in the market (1990: 253). Like Daisy, many ‗non-blog-shop‘
vendors consider the quality of the apparel they sell to be superior to those sold by blogshop owners and regard the latter with some level of disdain. As aforementioned, the low
cost and barriers of entry to the flea market and the various economic benefits afforded
by this form of retail set-up have caused something of an influx of blog-shop owners to
the flea market. Lacking in verifiable standards of quality, other vendors like Daisy
express their displeasure at being ―lumped‖ together with vendors of ―cheap‖, ―low
quality‖ and ―mass produced‖ products –much like how there is a ―mixing (of) inferior
with superior products‖ in bazaars (Fanselow, 1990: 253). However, by lamenting the
lack of quality of the garments offered by blog shops, owners of online businesses like
Daisy‘s are able to articulate a juxtaposition of the things they sell against a supposed
50
abundance of otherwise inferior clothing available at the flea market. By insisting that
their online stores are not blog-shops, other owners of online businesses seek to
distinguish and differentiate their goods by imbuing the goods they sell with the
characteristic of a comparatively superior quality.
Herein lies an attempt to counteract the commoditization represented by the massproduced, low quality clothing sold by blog shops with the singularization of the
garments sold by some other vendors, by instilling other properties that set them apart.
The mass-produced apparel are regarded as things that are seemingly produced and sold
only with profit-making objectives in mind—goods that are highly ―commoditized‖, the
very characteristics of which undermine the founding principles of the flea market.
Commoditization can be looked upon as a process of making a thing ―exchangeable for
more and more other things‖, reaching an optimum when it successfully extends the
―fundamentally seductive idea of exchange to as many items as the existing exchange
technology will comfortably allow‖ (Kopytoff, 1986: 72-73). The mass-produced
garments of blog-shops, by virtue of the sheer quantity of their production and assumed
to be ―saleable‖ (ibid: 69) of their low prices, are by extension ―common‖ things that are
―widely exchangeable‖ (ibid). As the ―essence of culture is discrimination‖, ―excessive
commoditization‖ is also seen as ―anti-cultural‖ (ibid: 73). As a counterdrive to this
―onrush of commoditization‖, the culture of many societies has ensured that ―some things
remain unambiguously singular‖, while simultaneously resisting the commoditization of
others and sometimes ―resingularizing‖ what has been previously commoditized (ibid).
By speaking of the superior quality of the things being sold, vendors like Daisy are able
to resist the seeming commoditization brought about by the presence of mass-produced
51
blog shop clothing. By contrast then, the things sold by other ‗non-blog-shop‘ vendors
are singularized by highlighting their quality. If ―quality itself is scarce‖ and ―is the
characteristic of goods that results from their being chosen as ranks markers‖ (Douglas
and Isherwood, 1979 [1996]: 84), then things that are regarded as possessing the attribute
of high ‗quality‘ go through the process of singularization not only because the rarity of
the attribute makes for it to be something to be highly valued, but also because the
symbolic status implied by the presence of ‗quality‘ can be projected onto the things,
making them less commoditized than mass-produced items.
Ironically, however, singularization, in the attempt to move away from
commoditization, translates into goods with higher monetary value. Kopytoff explains
this paradox of singularity:
(As) one makes them (things) more singular and worthy of being collected,
one makes them valuable; and if they are valuable, they acquire a price
and become a commodity and their singularity is to that extent
undermined. (Kopytoff, 1986: 81)
This is often reflected in the way vendors price their products, in accordance with the
perceived quality and by extension, value of the things they sell and is often illustrated by
how things at the flea market are priced. Explains Becky:
Actually our pricing is very simple. We kept it extremely straightforward,
that is, $35 for all earrings. So as long as we can cover the cost at $35, we
will price it at $35. . . If we really cannot fit it in 35, we will move it up
another notch to $38 or $40. And I think $35 is a price that people are
comfortable with and we are comfortable with, because it‘s a price that we
can offer something of value. Because if we go any lower, we cannot offer
you the same workmanship, (and) the same quality of the product.
52
The rationale behind Becky‘s pricing of the handmade costume jewelry she sells is
largely influenced by the perceived quality and hence, value of her goods. She pegs the
price of her items between $35 and $40, reasoning that it‘s a price both she and her
customers are ―comfortable‖ with. More significantly, she justifies the prices she has set
with the ―workmanship‖ and perceived ―quality‖ of her products, indicating that she
cannot offer the same high quality at a lower price. While the ―quality‖ of the products is
emphasized to singularize them and move them away from the commodity sphere, the
paradox is that the monetary value has to be articulated for them to be placed on sale.
Thus, these objects occupy an ambiguous position between the commodity-singular
spheres, both aspects of which may be spoken and thought of simultaneously. Rather than
producing a conflict of interest, vendors see the singularizing attribute of ‗quality‘ to be
ample justification for the commoditizing attribute of the monetary value of things.
In contrast, the perceived monetary value of apparel sold by blog shops involves a
much more straightforward process. Ingrid, a fashion designer by profession, explains:
If they (blog shop owners) sell it at a low price it‘s fine. Just know that the
quality is very poor that‘s why it deserves to be sold at a lower price
point . . . And I just think that a lot of it is so badly made.
Similarly, Michelle, an owner of a blog-shop, whose garments were selling for between
$5 and $20 at the flea market, agrees:
Of course the quality is not there . . . if you want cheap (lower prices),
(then) that‘s what you (will) get. If there‘s good stitching, sewing . . . then
it‘s more expensive obviously. So to sell cheap, I have to get this stuff.
53
Simply put, this perceived lack of ‗quality‘ as a result of ‗mass-production‘, indicates the
commoditizing aspect of the objects and in turn, paradoxically, signals a lower monetary
value.
An interesting observation about the flea market may be inferred from this
emphasis on quality and the resultant attempts to singularize things sold by ‗non-blog
shop‘ vendors—the things sold in informal retail spaces in Singapore like flea markets
adhere to the paradox of value suggested by Kopytoff. Although Fanselow suggests that
there are ―no verifiable and reliable standards of quality‖ in a bazaar; and that goods sold
in bazaars are adulterated with the indistinguishable mixing of things of superior with
those of inferior quality, the vendors in this flea market are able to categorically
differentiate, in their own way, similar goods of different quality. By describing the
garments sold by blog-shop vendors as ‗mass-produced‘ and lacking in ‗quality‘, other
vendors at the flea market are able to relegate these goods entirely to the sphere of the
commoditized, while simultaneously singualarizing their own goods by imbuing them
with properties of superior quality.
Authenticity
When ―the quality and the appropriate valuation of goods are not standardized‖,
―discontinuities in knowledge‖ that accompany the movement of commodities may arise,
resulting in ―problems involving authenticity and expertise . . . (entering) the picture‖
(Appadurai, 1986: 45). The perceived lack of quality control and standardization of
‗mass-produced‘ goods is matched by the organizer‘s avoidance of renting out stalls to
owners of blog shops, as it is thought to compromise the principles of aforementioned
54
‗artistic integrity‘ upon which the flea market was apparently founded. This artistic
integrity is very much influenced by Jess‘s knowledge of the origins of flea markets:
Actually, flea markets started in Paris, like what we call hippies and hobos
they‘ll just come onto the street and sell their wares, whatever that may be,
be it their art, their music, whatever they have left in their luggage so that
they can buy their next meal. And that‘s what we are trying to push.
Herein lays a romanticized perception of flea markets, not as retail spaces for profitmaking endeavors, but rather, as channels to sell their ―art‖ and ―music‖, making only
enough from it for mere subsistence. The ―mass-produced‖ apparel sold by blog-shop
owners at the flea market contradicts this idealized image and threatens to betray the
perceived ‗authenticity‘ of its artistic integrity upon which this flea market was founded.
By harking back to the origins of the flea market as a place where ―hippies and hobos‖
sold their art and music, the organizers invariably paint an ‗authentic‘, romanticized
vision of their flea market. The presence of an ‗authentic‘ is shorthand for an ―unspoiled,
original and tradition-bound‖ Other (Wherry in Cook (ed.), 2008: 14). The rise of
modernity and the resultant fragmentation and alienation in society has also led to a
search for the presence of an ‗authentic‘—―the individual revels in whatever staged
depictions that might bring him or her back in touch with a less fragmented, more pristine
existence‖ (MacCannell, 1976 from ibid). Much like how modernity has provoked
tourists to seek for ‗authenticity‘ in their travel destinations, the ―hippies and hobos‖ who
started flea markets in Paris similarly constitute an envisioned ‗authentic‘ Other from a
faraway time and place. The hippy subculture of the late 1960s in the ‗West‘ represented
among many other things, anti-materialism and suggested ―a casual disregard for obvious
signs of wealth and a disdain for ‗the colour of money‘‖ (McRobbie in McRobbie (ed.),
55
1988: 26). In a similar vein, vendors articulate their vision of the ideal flea market in
more concrete terms. Becky, for example, explains how she feels organizers should
discriminate against some vendors:
Because organizers get to screen the applicants . . . so from what I see, (it)
is when the flea market is oversubscribed, (that) the vendors are actually
very unique. . . the stuff they sell are very unique . . . the quality is
different. But when a flea market is undersubscribed, you see all sorts of
tenants (vendors), all sorts of people who are very unreasonable in their
dealings . . . vendors that come in when you don‘t maintain your standard
as an organizer, when you don‘t pick and choose the right kind of people
to be in your fleas (flea markets). I have nothing against them, but I feel
that there should be more discretion in choosing your applicants, not just
because it is undersubscribed so you let out your stalls to anybody.
While the organizers‘ vision of the flea market is articulated in rather vague and imagined
terms, vendors like Becky have more concrete perceptions about her ideal of the flea
market, citing the organizer‘s exercise of ―discretion‖ role in ‗maintaining‘ their
―standard‖ by ‗picking and choosing‘ ―the right kind‖ of vendors who sell things that are
―unique‖ and of ―quality‖. Nevertheless, like the organizers, vendors view the sale of
highly commoditized goods at the flea market as tarnishing the pristine image and ideal
of the flea market. This type of goods is looked upon as an unabashed feature of the
money-driven modern capitalist system. The ‗mass-produced‘ goods sold by blog shops,
with their relatively low prices as a selling point, contradict the non-profit-making
founding principles of the flea market as sites for offering highly-commoditized goods,
explicitly bringing to fore the monetary dimension of such forms of exchange. This
contradiction may be seen by the organizers and some vendors as undermining the
intended and ‗standard‘ and ‗authenticity‘ of the flea market. Conversely, things like
―art‖ and ―music‖ are considered unique and ―superior to the world of commerce‖
56
(Kopytoff, 1986: 82). Wherry (in Cook (ed.), 2008) notes how one of the ways
‗authenticity‘ is played out in the Thai handicraft market is though the artisans‘ refusal to
let his or her handicrafts enter the commercial market. This, ironically, cements the
artisans‘ credibility as a ‗true‘ artist who produces ‗authentic‘ art, and not tradition that is
‗cheapened‘ for sale. ‗Mass-produced‘ items then, betray this ‗authenticity‘, as the
motivation behind their very conception was intended to be for commercial sale, placing
them almost by default, in the sphere of the commoditized.
That is not to say, however, that vendors who are blog-shop owners do not
attempt, in their own ways, to play up differentiating attributes of the things they sell to
move it towards the sphere of the singular. Abidin (2011) has documented the many
virtual strategies through which blog shop owners create homo-social desire amongst
consumers, making their products more attractive to potential buyers26. Similarly, blogshop owners vending at the flea market engage in strategies to singularize the garments
on sale at their stalls. For example, Lily, a self-identified blog shop owner who has been
selling clothes priced from about $15 to $30, at the flea market for the past year, explains
how she attempts to make her products look more appealing to shoppers at the flea
market:
I show them photos (of) how they can wear them (the clothes on sale). . .
And also explain that they will look good in a (particular) type of design
and cut that suits their body (shape). . . It‘s not just a matter of cheap (low
26
For example, to ―stimulate desire and motivate customers to continually purchase from their new collections‖,
blog shop owners photograph models dressed in their clothes and post them on the blog shop website, to engage in a
―continuous cycle‖ of ―modeling, role-modeling and role-playing‘, all of which emphasize the physical attributes of
the models while simultaneously and resultantly promoting the garments sold by these blog shops (Abidin, 2011).
57
prices) and people will buy (the clothes being sold).
The need to move the things being sold towards the sphere of the singular is apparent
even amongst vendors like Lily who sell mass-produced goods that many, as
aforementioned, consider as mere commercial commodities that betray the quality and
authenticity of the flea market and its products. Indeed, as observed, many vendors, like
Lily, who are self-identified blog shop owners try to engage interested shoppers who
browse at their stalls in conversation, many a times commenting on which article of
clothing on sale might look suitable on the potential customer.
Such ‗singularizing strategies‘, however, fall short of aligning themselves with the
flea market‘s principles of artistic integrity, as they do not, unlike the efforts of many
vendors who are ‗non-blog shop‘ owners, ‗play up‘ the perceived authenticity of the
things they sell. Becky, who vehemently resists being categorized as a ‗blog shop owner‘,
justifies this resistance by characteristically differentiating the handmade costume
jewelry she sells:
I‘m not sure about other vendors but for me and my sister we maintain a
very strict policy (and) that is our products, for the (those) higher range
ones . . . like $20 and above, they are all unique pieces. Partly because we
don‘t bulk-buy our materials, like when your business gets big right, that‘s
what you do, you purchase in bulk. But we don‘t. Our materials are oneoff only so when it‘s being made and sold, you (customers) might want a
duplicate, but if we don‘t have the products, we can‘t produce it for you.
Of course upon request, we will do it for you but we won‘t kind of like put
it up again for sale. . . Usually our repeat products are upon request from
customers and also subject to the availability of materials. When we offer
such services to customers, of course it‘s a lot of work on our part but we
believe that people will appreciate and we won‘t mind going the extra mile
for people like them.
58
Several points can be gleaned from the above statement. Firstly, the costume jewelry
Becky and her sister sells are described as ―unique‖, ―one-off‖ pieces that are not meant
to be duplicated. By highlighting the rarity and exclusivity of objects, vendors like Becky
are able to allow her goods to foray, however fleetingly, into the more restricted realm of
personal valuation and circulation that is singularization. As goods being put on sale, the
singularity of these objects is marked by their ventures ―into the closed sphere of singular
‗art‘‖ before their ―forays into the commodity sphere‖ upon ―the moment of actual
exchange‖ (Kopytoff, 1986: 83). Secondly, by not ―bulk‖-purchasing their materials,
Becky and her sister are able to enforce a conceptual resistance to the mass-produced
goods sold by blog-shop owners, representing their unwillingness to ‗sell-out‘ and betray
the intended ethics of the flea market. Thirdly, the pricing of goods at ―$20 and above‖, is
seen as incidental to, and a result of the proclaimed ‗uniqueness‘ and exclusivity of the
thing—secondary to and a symptom of the objects‘ temporary position in the realm of
highly-prized and rare ‗singular art‘. Fourthly, by offering to recreate desired designs on
demand, vendors like Becky are seen as ―going the extra mile‖ for customers. Such
services of goodwill may be seen as contributing positively to the socializing aspect of
the market—that ―buying and selling is just one aspect of a larger experience to be
sampled‖ (Sherry, 1990a: 26). Moreover, many handicraft vendors like Becky make their
products ‗on-the-spot‘ while simultaneously manning their stalls at the flea market,
exhibiting the ‗handmade‘ process of what is being sold. This is something blog shop
vendors, for obvious reasons, are not able to do. Crafts have been argued to ―boom in
urban settings‖ because they signal ―a measure of creativity that is lacking in our daily
jobs and social roles‖, that can challenge ―boredom, declining interest in television, and
59
an adult yearning to feel new at something again‖ (Petrocci, 1981: 165), and serve as
somewhat of an anti-thesis to mass-production and all things mundane. By showcasing
the ‗backstage‘ production process, the ‗realness‘ of the creation is reinforced, further
enhancing the perceived ‗authenticity‘ of the vendors as artisans, and the final product as
‗art‘. This staging of this production process by hand conjures up ―a time when the old
craft values still prevailed and when one person saw through his or her production from
start to finish‖—something hippy counter-culture of the late 1960s valued (McRobbie in
McRobbie (ed.), 1988: 34). Thus, in contrast to vendors who are blog shop owners selling
‗mass-produced‘ garments, the ‗singularizing strategies‘ utilized by non-blog-shop
vendors are successfully aligned with the founding principles articulated by the
organizers—artistic integrity, a place for people to interact and a rejection of outright
profit-making—hence, playing up the ‗authenticity‘ of what is on sale.
4.3: The Flea Marketer and Second-hand Goods
The ―hippie subculture‖ referred to in the organizers‘ conceptualization of The
Flea also denounced material wealth and sought some higher reality, expressing this
choice externally through a whole variety of old and second-hand clothes‖ (McRobbie in
McRobbie (ed.), 1988: 26). True to the organizers‘ romanticized perception of the flea
market as a place where ―hippies and hobos‖ sold their ―art‖, ―music‖ and leftover
contents of their luggage for survival, many vendors that sell at The Flea belong to the
category of flea marketers selling second-hand good— mostly used garments of some
sort. Second-hand merchandise marketers at the flea market sell an array of personal
possessions, mostly used clothing of some sort. These marketers typically make up about
60
one-third of the twenty to sixty stalls present at any flea market session. These vendors
display the clothes they sell in a rather haphazard manner—hung on portable clothes
racks, in open suitcases or boxes placed on the floor for rummaging, and/or placed on
tables provided by the organizers. The open suitcases and boxes of clothes usually serve
as ‗bargain bins‘, with their contents priced anywhere between $1 to $5, while those hung
on the clothes rack or placed on tables are usually priced a little higher.
In a retail landscape such as Singapore‘s, choc-a-block with shopping malls, chain
stores and department stores offering shiny new products displayed prominently for sale
at every turn, it is thus intriguing to uncover the sale of an array of used, second-hand
clothing. Chua (2003: 15) has noted that:
For as long as we have capitalism . . . the realization of profit for the next
cycle of investment and production comes from the destruction of the
commodity through consumption. In this spiral of birth and death of
consumer items, the consumption patterns of Singaporeans will be
increasingly cosmopolitan, determined by and fitting into the global
marketing strategies of producers of consumer goods.
Although the second-hand goods market in Singapore is most certainly minute (but
definitely not confined to flea markets) when compared to the level of consumption of
globally mass-marketed commodities, it is nevertheless pertinent to note that the ―endless
spiral‖ (ibid) of the birth and death of a commodity does not always hold true when we
consider the sale of second-hand merchandise, as is the case in flea markets. This
‗endless spiral‘ of birth of commodity upon production and death of commodity upon
consumption deviates when we consider the ―lateral cycling‖ (Belk et. al., 1988) of
commodities that arise from the sale of second-hand goods in flea markets. Consumers
may ―exploit their (the commodities‘) life cycles in a way that is inimical to a
61
‗throwaway‘ society‖, by themselves being retailers (Sherry, 1990b: 182), extending the
life of consumer objects by promoting their circulation beyond the initial end-user‖
(Sherry, 1990b: 195). Many of the second-hand marketers, such as Ingrid, explained their
motivations behind selling their used possessions at the flea market, saying that it was a
way through which they could ‗get rid‘ of ‗stuff‘ they no longer needed or seldom used:
Basically I take part in flea markets to get rid of (my) stuff . . . like bags,
clothes, shoes and whatever. . . And I‘ve taken part in about five or six, I
suppose . . . or seven? Actually more like ten.
Like Ingrid, many second-hand marketers use the flea market as a means to ―get rid of
stuff‖, taking part in as many as ten flea market sessions over the course of a few years to
do so. Another second-hand marketer I spoke to at the flea market, Sally, in her mid-20s,
noted that she sells clothes that she no longer wears at the flea market as she found it
―very wasted (wasteful)‖ to simply discard them:
If I can sell them and somebody (else) will wear them, I won‘t feel like it‘s
so wasted (wasteful), like just throwing it away. Plus I can make some
money . . . like recoup my losses (from buying those clothes in the first
place) . . . clear my cupboard (wardrobe) and (then) buy more (new
clothes).
This sale of second-hand garments at the flea market thus creates an interesting cycle of
events involving the commoditization and re-commoditization of garments. Personal
possessions—things in the singular sphere, are yet again being shifted into that of the
commodity when they are placed on sale at the flea market. The flea market, with its low
cost of rent, low barriers to entry and hence, relatively public nature, acts as an avenue
through which such re-commoditization may take place. Ironically, however, although
lateral cycling through the sale of second-hand goods allows consumers to ―exploit their
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(the commodities‘) life cycles in a way that is inimical to a ‗throwaway‘ society‖, by
themselves being retailers (Sherry, 1990b: 182) at the flea market, it also provides for a
more faithful participation in hedonism and consumerism. After ‗getting rid‘ of their
unwanted clothing by selling them at the flea market and thereby ‗clearing‘ and making
space in their wardrobe, second-hand marketers like Sally, resume their roles as faithful
consumers by buying more new garments. Indeed, Miller (1988: 56) notes that ―one
characteristic of an affluent urban society seems to be a willingness to acquire material
goods and then discard them with equal abandon‖, and that ―the idea that these suddenly
dysfunctional items have value and can be easily converted to cash creates supplies for a
market filled with eager customers‖. The sale of second-hand goods at the flea market,
instead of adhering to the values of the ‗hippy‘ subculture that denounced material wealth,
acts as a form of entrepreneurial channel through which consumers can convert old
clothing into cash to spend on new ones.
Not all second-hand goods sold at the flea market, however, follow the same
paths to re-commoditization. Second-hand marketers valuate and price their goods
differently following different rationales. The clothes put on sale in the ‗bargain bins‘ are
clearly priced lower than their counterparts displayed on the portable clothes racks. From
experience, some clothes found in the bargain bins look older than those on the racks and
may have some form of defect like a stain, missing button or an undone seam that
depreciates their use value. Others are, like Ingrid explains, ―super basics‖ (priced by
Ingrid at $2) such as tee shirts and tank tops that have low aesthetic value. Clothes hung
on the racks tend to be priced higher, at about $10 to $20. There is a hierarchy of value
that is expressed through the way the used clothes are displayed. Ingrid explains the
63
process through which she evaluates and subsequently prices such personal possessions
for sale at the flea market:
Really I think about how much I‘ve worn it, and how much it costs in the
beginning when I bought it. And the condition it‘s in . . . And emotional
attachment also, sometimes. I mean, if this was very dear to me and I
don‘t use it anymore and obviously someone else will use it better . . . love
it much better, you know… then I‘ll sell it but that‘ll probably be another
few dollars . . . maybe $5 extra.
What is significant about such valuation processes involving personal possessions is that
the rationale behind it lies beyond its remaining use value to include ―emotional
attachment‖ as well. Maisel (1974: 496) also notes that the ―cultural significance‖ of
goods complicates the straightforward valuation of them. While unwanted personal
possessions can be re-commoditized by being put up for sale and thereby readily
converted to cash, second-hand marketers like Ingrid are ―often caught between the
cultural structure of commoditization and his (sic) own personal attempts to bring a value
order to the universe of things‖ (Kopytoff, 1986: 76). Second-hand goods thus occupy an
exceptionally precarious position between the public sphere of the commodity and the
more closed-off, personal sphere of the singular, as their monetary value as commodities
depend heavily on their arbitrary evaluations of ‗emotional attachment‘. This expression
of emotions is also reflected in how second-hand marketers describe the used goods they
sell as ―pre-loved‖, instead of explicitly describing them as ‗used‘ or ‗second-hand‘.
Here lies an attempt, yet again, to imbue the goods with characteristics of the singular. By
using terms like ―pre-loved‖ and ―vintage‖, vendors of these goods seek to play up the
singularity of the things they sell by attaching the seemingly ‗uncommodifiable‘ personal
sentiment of ―love‖. This is also very often reinforced by the vendors‘ attempts to strike
64
up conversations with interested buyers, and explain the history behind the things they
sell, as Ingrid explains:
I give a background story and try to be friendly. . . Like if I bought
something from a vintage store in Paris, I will say this is where I bought it,
and it was a great store, and I was on holiday.
Indeed, many of the second-hand marketers provided such ‗background‘ stories of the
things they sold in my encounters at the flea market. One such vendor who sold me her
necklace, for example, told me how it was a birthday gift, many years ago, from a friend
of hers. She explained that she had hesitated in selling the necklace, but decided to do it
as she rarely wore it and thought it a ―waste‖ to leave it unworn. She then made me
promise, in mock seriousness, that I would ―take good care of it‖ so that she would not
―feel so bad‖ for selling the gift away. Belk (1988) notes that things like personal
possessions can ‗contain‘ personal contents and become part of their owners‘ extended
sense of self (from Hermann, 1997: 919). Second-hand marketers engage in these acts of
―pass (passing) on their memories and attachments when they sell things to absolute
strangers‖ by relating ‗background‘ stories that give details on when, where and how they
acquired the items in the first place—giving the objects a ‗life‘ of their own, and thereby
creating ―inalienable possessions‖ even at the point of monetary exchange as
commodities (Hermann, 1997: 919). Although the monetary value of the thing is not
necessarily enhanced, as evidenced by the relatively low prices of second-hand goods at
the flea market, its non-monetary, symbolic value as a singularized thing is heightened.
The flea market is thus not only a place where used objects may be re-commoditized by
65
being put on sale, but also one where the biographies and history of the things sold may
be conveyed and subsequently passed on.
4.4 Conclusion
In a nation filled with glitzy shopping malls that serve, for many, as emblems of
modernity and economic progress, it is pertinent to pay attention to the still-existing
conduits of less formal forms of economic exchange. The flea markets in Singapore
provide a platform for budding entrepreneurs and has been incorporated into the business
strategies of many small, web-based business owners seeking to reach out to consumers
amidst keen competition from bigger, more well-known retailers who have more
economic clout. At the same time, the vendors at the flea market negotiate the tensions
surrounding the way they categorize, valuate and subsequently price their goods, taking
into consideration the ‗quality‘ and ‗authenticity‘ so intricately linked with the founding
principles of ‗artistic integrity‘ articulated by the organizers. The flea market then, serves
not only as a space where economic exchange takes place, but also one where the
meanings of things are negotiated and articulated, often in tension, it seems with
explicitly-articulated commercial motivations. How consumers and shoppers react and
relate to the dynamics behind selling at the flea market, as well as their own valuations
and meanings imbued into the things they purchase will be explored in the next chapter
and will further reveal the complexities behind such retail set-ups.
66
Chapter 5: Flea Market Shoppers and the Consumption of ‘Vintage’
Clothing
Shopping, it has been said, is one of the foremost significant recreational activities
that Singaporeans engage in, reflecting many important aspects of Singapore‘s culture
and beliefs (Chua, 2003). The existence of a rapidly expanding middle class in Singapore
since the early 1960s has given rise to a ‗culture of consumption‘—a consumption of
signs and images—that is closely tied to many of the nation‘s glitzy shopping malls and
department stores, revealing as much about the commodities purchased as they do about
how and why these things are valued (ibid). The shopping mall, for example, has been
described as ―a physical space within which individuals come to participate in a certain
type of urban ambience which they crave‖ and ―a place of use values‖ of which their
realization takes place through social interaction (Gottdiener, 1995: 86). The idea of
shopping and consumption in Singapore is thus almost always never divorced from that
of the shopping mall.
It has also been argued, however, that the flexibility afforded by the ‗informality‘
of street markets has allowed for the successful catering of goods and services for
different segments of consumers across society by adapting to local socio-economic
circumstances (Cross and Morales, 2007: 10). Public markets have also been said to
benefit customers economically by providing competitive prices, a larger variety of goods,
unusual products not found elsewhere and better customer service (Baum and Spitzer,
1995: 29-30). Like these street markets and public markets, flea markets have many
informal characteristics, like its reputed ‗festive‘ (Sherry, 1990a) and ‗carnival-like‘
atmosphere (Miller, 1988: 59), which, arguably influences consumer behaviour, such that
67
it is differs from that displayed under more ‗formal‘ retail circumstances. It is interesting
then, to explore shopping practices and shopper behaviour in less formal retail settings,
such as the flea market, in the context of a consumption culture like Singapore‘s, that is
supposedly so richly and deeply rooted in the formal retail setting of the shopping mall
and department store.
As has been shown in the previous chapter, the things being sold in the flea
market can reveal a great deal about the dynamics and motivations behind the vendors‘
participation. Similarly, as shall be explored, the things being purchased at the flea
market and the way meanings are imbued in them may reveal the significance of such
informal retail spaces and settings in shaping consumer behaviours and beliefs.
5.1: A Brief Background of the Flea Market Shoppers
Street markets have been credited with the ability to successfully exploit
consumer segmentation, providing consumers from the lower rungs of the socioeconomic strata with goods and services they might not otherwise afford through more
formal channels of retail (Cross and Morales, 2007: 10; Dewar and Watson, 1990: 18).
Flea markets, on the other hand, have been described instead, as ―elitist‖ (King, 1981:
135). The socio-economic demographic of the shoppers at the flea market studied in this
paper seems to differ from that of the street markets discussed by Cross and Morales, but
are, at the same time, not as ‗elitist‘ as King claims. Hibbert, Horne and Stone (1996: 6)
note that discrepancies among findings of shopper demographics in less formal retail
settings could be due to ―differences among consumers in various regions or local areas‖
as some of the middle classes in some areas might be attracted to such retail formats more
68
than those in others. The vendor mix at the flea market may also be ―more attractive to a
certain segment of the population‖ than others (ibid). Indeed, most of the shoppers at the
flea market appear to be young women ranging between their mid-teens to their early
thirties, who claim that they are attracted to the flea market for the plethora of trendy
women‘s apparel and costume jewellery on sale. There is also the occasional curious
passer-by27 who stops to browse. The shopper profile at The Flea thus consists of a
narrow, and highly-gendered demographic, and is reflected in the plethora of women‘s
apparel, whether brand-new or second-hand, on sale at the flea market. Many of these
shoppers whom I spoke to and interviewed were students or young working adults
holding ‗white collar‘ jobs. Marie, for example is a 19-year old college student who gets
a monthly allowance from her parents and some income from a part-time job as a private
tutor, while Sarah and Crystal, both in their mid-twenties are a public relations executive
at a multi-national firm and a teacher at a local primary school, respectively. Both hold
steady incomes. Although there is no way to fully ascertain the class background of
shoppers at The Flea, their financial ability to partake in shopping, as a recreational
activity, signals at least some level of affluence and cultural capital to partake in a
consumerist lifestyle.
5.2: Shopping Behaviour in the Flea Market
Petrocci notes that the popularity of market-places in contemporary cities in
America ―lays bare the collective discontent of passive consumers and mass-marketed
27
Some of these passers-by are tourists taking a stroll along the Singapore River, along which the night club that
hosts many of the flea market sessions is located.
69
lifestyles‖, urging American urbanites and suburbanites alike to ―flock to street fairs and
farmers‘ markets to engage in more personal, playful and sensuous forms of shopping‖
(1981: 163). Such motivations work to influence consumer behaviour amongst flea
market shoppers, resulting in a range of shopper behaviours—some of which may not be
found under more formal retail environments.
5.2.1: Browsing and Looking
Browsing is by no means a consumer behaviour that is unique to the flea market.
Chua, for example, notes that ―for many urbanites the actual buying of objects or
necessity is not the primary purpose of ‗shopping‘‖ (2003: 42). Instead, the act of
browsing is, as Chua (ibid) explains:
Browsing, however, is itself also a euphemism for what one may term
‗wasting‘ time, in contrast to spending time ‗productively‘. Idling, while
moving or stationary, is thus the primary purpose and activity for many
who visit shopping centres.
Similarly, many shoppers at The Flea partake in the act of browsing, strolling leisurely
from stall to stall, taking time to visually peruse the goods displayed on sale. Most seem
to begin their walk through the flea market at one end of the outdoor section,
systematically making their way past each of the stalls along the pathways outside, before
proceeding to the indoor section of the night club, where browsers continue their leisurely
stroll. The relatively dim lights of the night club cast shadows on the objects displayed
for sale, forcing shoppers to occasionally stop to take a closer look at things that may
catch their eye. Most of the shoppers come in pairs or small groups of three or four, and
some are seen to carry on conversations while casually browsing. Some of these small
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groups of shoppers browse the stalls together, while others split up momentarily when
one of them gets distracted by goods from other stalls, before reconciling shortly after. A
group of three fashionably-dressed teenage girls, for example, were seen to arrive at the
flea market together and browsed around the flea market in a systematic manner, all the
while chatting with each other and diligently scanning the items displayed on sale at each
of the stalls. While the group paused to admire a bracelet at one stall, however, one of the
girls casually looked away and seemed distracted by the stall opposite the pathway. It
was not before long that she told her other two friends that she was interested in a belt
being sold at the other stall and slipped away to enquire about the price of the belt. She
rejoined her friends shortly after, telling them about the belt that caught her eye and
signalling for them to follow her to the other stall so that they could ―check out the belt‖
together.
Miller concludes that the flea market is many a times a ―recreational outlet‖ for
browsers, even those that ―have little intention of making a purchase‖ (1988: 59). Sherry
(1990a: 28) also notes that rather than being ―an exercise in self-denial‖, the act of
browsing or ―just looking‖ constitutes ―an authentic experience to reinvigorate the
marketing system‖. As aforementioned, browsing, with or without the intention of
buying, is an activity integral to that of shopping, and is, in this and many cases, a highly
social one that reinforces and displays ties of friendship or kinship within the marketplace.
The festive mood provided by the alcohol and music at flea market sessions held at the
night club also seem to contribute to and confirm Maisel‘s ―sociability myth‖ (1974:
502)—―meaning-creating‖ and ―meaning-sustaining acts‖ that allow flea market shoppers
to endow their experiences with greater significance‖, corresponding to a ―wish to see the
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flea market as an especially enjoyable place to spend one‘s time‖, not just one where
mundane monetary transactions take place (ibid). Indeed, on occasions when I visited the
field site alone, I felt awkward while walking through the flea market and browsing in
solitude. I was very conscious of my presence as a researcher amongst the other shoppers,
almost all of which browsed in pairs or groups. A shopper I spoke to at The Flea concurs:
I like to just walk around here (at the flea market) with my friends and
look. Even if I don‘t buy anything, we (she and her friends) will look
around... take a look at all the stuff (that is on sale).
The flea market is ―the place par excellence, where people ‗browse‘ and where it is
impossible to plan . . . one‘s arrival (with) . . . a specific objective in mind when one
starts out‖, such that shoppers have the ―pleasure of being led stray and off the track‖
(Floch, 1988: 243). For the above shopper, there lies a sense of pleasure-seeking in
wandering about and looking around at the flea market whether or not any purchase is
intended. This is also often coupled with the social interaction between friends who
attend in pairs or groups. Sociability is thus inseparable from perceived authenticity. The
sense of wonderment experienced by walking in the market, together with the fact that it
is often shared by peers, makes flea markets an ‗authentic‘ opportunity to experience
―being-in-the-market‖, where the market is ―not merely a mechanism‖ (Sherry, 1990a: 27)
nor commercial activity but a holistic social activity.
5.2.2: Rummaging and searching
Obviously a good buy that is someone else‘s trash but hopefully my
treasure . . . Hoping to find that treasure, I suppose (is why I shop at the
flea market).
The above quote by Marie, a college student who shops occasionally at The Flea
and captures a commonly-observed activity that is closely tied to the act of browsing—
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the searching and rummaging that goes on while consumers partake in shopping at the
flea market. This involves shoppers sieving through bargain bins and racks of clothes—
other people‘s ―trash‖—to sieve out items that catch their eye—items that they consider
―treasure‖. This idea of rummaging through trash to find treasure is closely juxtaposed
against consumers‘ shopping experiences in more formal retail set-ups like the shopping
mall. It is not uncommon for a firm boundary to exist in sellers‘ and buyers‘ perceptions
of a distinction between more informal forms of selling and the idea of ―going retail‖—
that is, selling out of a ‗formal‘ shop space (Belk et. al, 1988: 463). Although not always
favorably regarded by all shoppers, rummaging is often used to distinguish the
experience of shopping at a flea market from that at more formal retail set-ups in their
descriptions. As Elaine, a flea market shopper who attends flea markets ―irregularly‖—a
few times a year, explains:
You go to a store because their style is like this and you don‘t have to
rummage through. I don‘t know, some people find joy in rummaging
through things (at the flea market) but I find it tiring.
For Elaine, the flea market experience is different from that of visiting a formal store
because it involves rummaging. Although she does not find similar ‗joy‘ in the activity as
others do, she recognizes it as an integral part of shopping at a flea market, and continues
to visit flea markets several times a year and ‗rummage through things‘ even though she
finds it ‗tiring‘. Rummaging is thus characteristic of shopping at the flea market.
Unlike the shopping at a flea market, however, Chua (2003: 41-55) notes that the
conventional retail space of the shopping mall shapes consumers‘ behaviors and the way
they use their bodies as ―vehicular units‖ to navigate through this space. There is a certain
73
degree of self-consciousness that presides amongst consumers in a shopping mall, as the
degree of freedom that they have within the space is permitted and signaled by cues such
as the manner in which commodities are displayed and the shoppers‘ own awareness of
their financial ability to consume these commodities (ibid: 53). For example, the
consumer feels more self-conscious in high-end boutiques on the upper floors of the
shopping mall, while the freedom of the body is increased ―among the clothes that hang
on free-standing racks stationed along circulation paths‖ (ibid: 51). A similar observation
regarding this ‗freedom‘ can be made with regards to shoppers at The Flea. As racks and
suitcases full of clothes are displayed almost haphazardly next to the stalls, sometimes
spilling over onto the walkway, many buyers browse freely, rummaging through the
racks, pulling out items that are of interest to them, measuring it against their bodies for
size and touching the goods on display. Rummaging is also explicitly encouraged by the
organizers, as seen on their website publicizing upcoming flea market sessions:
Ready those sacks and don‘t hold back!
Sharpen your digging skills and let‘s go! (sic)
(March 3, 2011)
It‘s gon‘be a blissful round of smiles and new findsss.
Get surprising with good diggin‘ skills brothers and sisters! (sic)
(February 22, 2011)
Big ups to the intense diggin‘ from many wikked treasure hunters. (sic)
(April 1, 2011)
74
The above promotional quips written by the organizers are just a few of the many that
call out to shoppers to ―sharpen (their) digging skills‖—to rummage and search without
‗holding back‘—for ―treasure‖ amongst the gamut of goods on sale at the flea market.
There seems to be considerably less self-consciousness involved in the shoppers‘
interaction with the goods on display at the flea market, as compared to what has been
described about consumers in high-end boutiques. This could be due to several reasons.
Firstly, there could be somewhat of a perceived sense of egalitarianism and inclusiveness
amongst shoppers, resulting in the opinion that the flea market is a retail environment
where consumers can partake in with ease. Carolyn, who attends flea markets about once
a month as a shopper, explains:
People here (at the flea market) are friendly so I (will) dare to slowly look
through (the goods on sale) . . . to see what I like. Because for flea markets,
you need to dig (through goods on sale) to find (the) good stuff.
Shoppers like Carolyn feel that they can ―dig‖ through the goods displayed to look for
what they like, as there is a sense of friendliness that does not inhibit such rummaging.
This ―less passive‖ (Petrocci, 1981: 165) form of shopping experience allows for
discernment on the part of consumers as they are encouraged and even expected to
actively search for things they want—the ―good stuff‖, or things that are deemed to be
value-for-money.
The act of rummaging in the flea market is also a highly tactile one, suggesting a
certain ease with which flea market shoppers interact with the retail environment, as
goods, especially clothes, are displayed in a relatively ‗open‘ and inviting manner. It was
also not uncommon for shoppers to request to try on the clothes in the nearby restroom. I
75
was encouraged by several vendors while I was browsing, to ―feel free to rummage
through‖ the bargain bins and racks of clothes they displayed, and to try on clothes I was
interested in. The fact that vendors encourage shoppers to touch and try on clothes
contrasts with the situation in high-end boutiques where ―the high prices of
merchandise . . . attracts (attract) the eyes but not the hands‖ and shoppers who cannot
afford these prices are afraid to touch the goods on display (Chua, 2003: 51). This
apprehension to touch goods on display is determined significantly by space. Some
consumers in the shopping mall avoid ―crossing thresholds of shops‖ whose goods they
cannot afford. Such high-end shops are characterized by their sparseness, which signals
exclusivity (ibid). In contrast, the flea market erases such boundaries through its
egalitarian use of space of the common walkway and haphazard display of goods which
signal affordability (Miller, 1988: 58), creating a ‗free-for-all‘ environment that invites,
rather than prevents, the shopper to have physical contact with whatever is on display.
This is an important aspect of the flea market shopping experience, and is one of the
reasons why consumers choose to buy from vendors at the flea market instead of from the
many online shops that these same vendors also own. As Carolyn explains:
Being able to see and touch and feel the product before buying. Because
sometimes the things like colour is very important. If you put against your
real skin tone it might not match you as a person. But on the picture (on
the online shop) it looks like, ―Wow fantastic‖, a colour that you like. But
the real colour might not suit you.
For shoppers like Carolyn then, having the chance to touch and feel the ―real‖ product
while rummaging, constitutes a significant part of the flea market shopping experience
and is irreplaceable with virtual experiences of shopping because of the proximity with
76
which she can physically interact with the goods brings out the sensory dimensions of the
product. She is able to decide if she wants to buy the product by comparing its colour
against her skin tone by putting it against her body. As observed on many occasions, the
ease with which shoppers pick up clothing and accessories at the flea market while
rummaging and place it, however, cursorily, against their bodies to gauge their suitability,
signals the tactile dimension this consumer behavior as a noteworthy one.
The relative lack of self-consciousness amongst shoppers at the flea market could
also be attributed to the seemingly homogenous socio-economic background28 of most
shoppers, resulting in the absence of an awareness of financial (in)ability when
purchasing the goods—unlike how consumers feel when they cannot afford the goods on
sale in high-end boutiques (Chua, 2003: 53). While not all the shoppers at the flea market
necessarily find the goods on sale inexpensive, many are willing to spend on luxury
goods. Constance, a shopper at the flea market, for example, explains one of her
purchases at the flea market about a year ago:
I bought a very expensive bag (at the flea market) before… it was a
Paddington Chloe (brand) bag. And it was $300. But I mean (the) original
price was like 3 or 4 thousand dollars…. (When I saw it) I was like ‗Hey,
it‘s mine!‘.
Miller notes that flea markets ―offer a place where buyers with limited resources can
obtain serviceable goods‖ at a fraction of the retail price offered in more formal channels
(1988: 59). This seems to be the case for Constance and other shoppers who scour the
flea market in search of brand-name items, whether previously used or not, for a fraction
of the retail price. However, being able to rummage, search and ultimately find the things
28
See section 5.1 on the socio-economic background of the shoppers at this flea market.
77
they want can also be seen as a mark of the consumers‘ ability to discern the ‗good stuff‘
from the plethora of other goods on sale. It is less a signal of their financial (in)ability or
unwillingness to purchase goods at undiscounted retail prices than it is a demonstration of
skill. Carolyn explains her pride in being able rummage through flea market goods to find
things that she likes:
Very happy when I see something and I‘m like, ―Yes! I like this. I‘ll take
it.‖ Like there‘s a sense of achievement . . . like finally after digging
(through) for so long.
As exemplified by Constance and Carolyn, shoppers at The Flea may also regard
rummaging and searching as a task to be undertaken with pride and consider successful
finds an ―achievement‖ to be proud of. Indeed, ―rummage‖ is a ―highly discretionary
adjective‖ (Sherry, 1990a: 24) that in this case, serves as a marker of taste and cultural
capital, and not like, as Miller (1988: 59) suggests, a representation of ―buyers with
limited resources‖. Shoppers like Constance who find luxury goods, such as designer
handbags, at the flea market for a fraction of their retail price partake in the ―rhetorical
and social‖ use of luxury goods as ―incarnated signs‖ (Appadurai, 1986: 38). The
circumstances under which luxury is consumed—its ―register‖—demonstrate its
restriction to the elite class, the complexity of its acquisition, its capacity to signify
complex social messages, the specialized knowledge required to consume it appropriately
and an intense linkage of their consumption to the body, person and personality (ibid).
The purchasing of such luxury goods, at the flea market, especially those that have been
used, presents this luxury register with several complications. Firstly, while its relatively
high price compared to other goods sold at the flea market does somewhat restrict its
78
consumption to members of the elite, the fact that it may be heavily discounted opens it
up to members outside of this group. Secondly, however, a specialized knowledge is
nevertheless still a pre-requisite for its consumption, especially in less formal retail
environments like the flea market where the quality and valuation of goods are not known
to be standardised and ―bazaar-style‖ information searches characterise the exchange
setting (Geertz, 1979). For shoppers like Constance to successfully ‗find‘ an item like the
Paddington Chloe bag she bought, for example, knowledge about its value and its
symbolic qualities as a fashion ‗statement‘ is required. The possession of this knowledge,
in this case, also serves as a signifier of the shopper‘s ‗expertise‘ in fashion—it is a
recognition of the ―ever-shifting rules‖ that are determined by the ‗taste makers‘ of
society (Baudrillard (1981) and Bourdieu (1984) from Appadurai, 1986: 32). Moreover,
there may be a sense of satisfaction derived from not only from being able to identify a
desirable item, but in this case, also from capturing value29 in the purchase of a luxury
item at a reduced price. The ability to rummage and search is not frowned upon at the flea
market, but rather something that is highly-regarded by shoppers. Rummaging is hence
not only a physical act, but also a symbolic one that permeates flea market shopping
experiences, surfacing ever so often in the memories and retellings of the purchasing of
the goods.
5.3: Second-hand Clothing: The Discourse and Consumption of ‘Vintage’ Amongst
Flea Market Shoppers
29
See Chapter 6.
79
Significantly, much of rummaging in the flea market requires shoppers to sieve
through the many piles and racks of second-hand clothing on sale. Crewe and Gregson
(2003) have illustrated the importance of second-hand goods in consumption culture,
arguing that ―second-hand has the potential to be cast as another critical political moment
within consumption‖ (ibid: 11), of which consumers play an important role in extending
the lifespan and determining the values of such goods. This is especially true when it
concerns the consumption of used clothing and the emulation of ―second-hand style‖ or
‗vintage‘ dressing (McRobbie, 1988: 23-49). The idea of ‗vintage‘ clothing was a
recurring topic in conversations and interviews with shoppers of the flea market and
many used items on sale there were also termed as such, with several vendors
specialising in selling only ‗vintage‘ dresses for women. Although McRobbie (ibid: 23),
writing in the 1980s, described such clothing styles as a ―current vogue for nostalgia‖
then, the idea of wanting to dress in ‗vintage‘ style has remained, and still resonates with
many of the flea market shoppers today. In fact, ‗vintage‘ has ceased to exist on the
fringes of sartorial styles that were associated with the punk counter-culture of the 1980s,
and has now been variously incorporated into the mainstream fashion system (Clark,
2005; JenB, 2005; Palmer, 2005; Lovasz, 2006).
Describing an article of clothing as ‗vintage‘ carries with it several connotations.
Most commonly, ‗vintage‘ has been defined chronologically by the identification of a
definite time period, outside of which it is not considered as such. It is on these temporal
terms that many shoppers at the flea market define ‗vintage‘. Jennifer explains her
definition of ‗vintage‘:
80
I mean vintage is really…. Well, people might argue this, but it‘s really
from the 80‘s and before. 90‘s is just bad clothes, man. (laughter) I think
that‘s how, I mean, vintage generally is… considered. You can‘t just say
this is my tee shirt from the 90‘s and try to sell it as vintage because it is
not vintage . . . it is just an old tee shirt.
Similarly, Vicky states her understanding of ‗vintage‘ items:
Everybody has a very different definition of vintage. Some people will say
that it must be at least two decades (old) or some people will say that
anything that is (from) later than the 80‘s is not considered vintage. For
me, anything that‘s before 1990s is considered vintage.
Although shoppers like Jennifer and Vicky may not necessarily agree on the exact time
period from which to consider clothes ‗vintage‘, there is, in their definitions, a temporal
projection to the past that marks out a very definite time period within which the clothing
that are produced and consumed are now presently considered ‗vintage‘. Used goods
which fall outside of whatever stipulated time period the shopper imagines, such as
Jennifer‘s conception of tee-shirts from the 1990s, are considered ―bad clothes‖ and ―old‖
and labeled by shoppers as ―not vintage‖.
5.3.1: Connoisseurship: Discerning Vintage and Displaying Style
Being able to make this distinction between ―bad clothes‖ and ―vintage‖ from the
piles of second-hand clothing on sale at the flea market thus also connotes a certain level
of connoisseurship that is closely tied to the aforementioned skill in rummaging.
Rummaging through used objects sold at the flea market for a successful find requires
shoppers to be ―in-the-know‖ about the cultural significance of things (Maisel, 1974:
496). Shoppers use highly-specialized market knowledge that includes that of ―swiftly
moving currents of fashionable interest‖ (ibid). Like other items of fashion that may serve
81
as a marker of taste or class, clothing that is discerned as ‗vintage‘ in the process of
rummaging mark their consumers as connoisseurs of sartorial style. However, unlike
brand new items in the first cycle of consumption, the connoisseurship involved in the
consumption of vintage clothing requires an even more specialized set of knowledge.
Palmer (in Clark and Palmer (eds.), 2005: 200) notes that there lays an anxiety involved
in identifying ―suitably‖ vintage items of clothing, especially when shopping for these
amidst the vast stock of second-hand clothes at the flea market. For shoppers like Jennifer
and Vicky, for example, this anxiety may be quelled by their definitions of vintage within
a specific time frame, such as ―before 1990s‖ (Vicky). For other shoppers, however, this
connoisseurship is guided by more nuanced, albeit arguably arbitrary considerations that
involve the negotiation of current styles of clothing with vintage styles to avoid looking
dated, as Sharon, a marketing executive in her 20s who has been purchasing vintage
clothing from the flea market and various other second-hand shops, illustrates:
Vintage is a very niche market in Singapore still and there are not many
people here who have (a) good knowledge of it or (are) even open to it . . .
especially older people like my mum . . . will be saying things like, ―Why
do you wear until so old? Will people laugh at you or not?‖ (sic) I told her
some people really like it and it‘s very hot (popular) in the US you
know. . . Well, it‘s quite hard (difficult not to look ‗old‘) because you need
to know how to match because the clothes are old. Like for me, I will
match a vintage dress with booties (shoes) that are very ‗in‘ (fashionable)
now . . . so I won‘t look so old.
The above quip highlights two points of interest concerning the consumption of vintage.
Firstly, the level of expertise involved in the ‗appropriate‘ consumption of vintage is
deemed as rare in Singapore and is a ―niche‖ market that ―not many people here have a
good knowledge of‖. This is contrasted with the apparent popularity of ‗vintage‘ fashion
in the US, and is a common point of reference against which shoppers at the flea market
82
like to peg their experiences and knowledge. Shoppers often compare their vintage finds
at flea markets in Singapore with those that they have come across or personally
experienced about those ―in the US‖ or ―in London and Paris‖, citing those in the latter to
be ‗better‘ than the former. Despite shopping in an alternative retail environment like the
flea market, global imaginings are far from being lost on shoppers as they attempt to
demonstrate their awareness and appreciation of the global fashion arena30 by rummaging
for what they deem suitably vintage.
Secondly, for shoppers like Sharon, demonstrating their links to the global fashion
arena involves knowing how to ‗match‘ and coordinate vintage items of clothing, and
entails the ‗difficult‘ process of carefully pairing them with current styles, such as booties,
so as to avoid looking, like her mother warns, ―old‖ or dated. Dressing entirely in
vintage clothing may also run the risk signalling poverty and an exemption from spaces
that sell brand-new clothing (Crewe and Gregson, 2003: 167). Vintage style amplifies
―the complex requirements of proper timing that signals being ‗in‘ or ‗out‘ of fashion‖
(Palmer in Clark and Palmer (eds.), 2005: 200). To be a successful consumer of vintage
style, shoppers at the flea market thus not only need to discern vintage stock from ‗nonvintage‘ second-hand stock while rummaging, but also wear them according to the
―aesthetics of decontextualization‖ (Appadurai, 1986: 28). Appadurai notes that the
domains of fashion and art partake in ―the diversion of commodities from their original
nexus‖, where the value of the object is enhanced by purposefully placing objects and
30
See also Clark (in Clark and Palmer (eds.), 2005: 163-164) for an account of how consumers of vintage clothing
in Hong Kong partake in ―reverse exoticism‖ by showing a preference for foreign stocks of second-hand clothing to
demonstrate their knowledge in the global fashion arena.
83
things in unlikely contexts, creating a prized ―aesthetics of diversion‖ that feeds on a
consumerist society‘s quest for novelty (ibid). For second-hand goods, the ongoing
practices of wearing and displaying add value to them as commodities (Crewe and
Gregson, 2003: 167-169). In this case, old items of clothing from previous decades are
aestheticized and knowingly juxtaposed with newer, more current items of clothing such
as ―booties‖31, and worn in the ‗unlikely‘ context of the present. This is a display strategy
that takes advantage of the ―stylistic safety net‖ of current items of clothing confer—
something which dressing entirely in second-hand clothes, whether regarded as vintage or
not, cannot achieve (ibid: 168). This is because what is at stake is the effective display of
nuanced style that demonstrates the consumers‘ cultural capital, rather than drawing
attention to the fact that used clothes are worn, running the risk of wrongfully signalling a
lack of economic capital to purchase new goods. To be a connoisseur of vintage clothing
is then, firstly, to be able to rummage through vast stocks of second-hand clothes with an
imagined connection to the global fashion arena by constantly using the US and Europe
as points of reference; and secondly, a demonstration of this sophisticated knowledge by
mixing vintage with current styles of clothing.
The seeming inclusiveness of the flea market as encouraged by the
abovementioned organizers‘ call for shoppers to rummage, then gives way to a certain
level of elitism, especially when the consumption of vintage clothing is involved:
31
See Appendix B for a photo of an example of mixing and matching a ‗vintage‘ dress with current styles of shoes
and bags.
84
The apparent democracy of the market, from which nobody is excluded on
the grounds of cost, is tempered by the very precise tastes and desires of
the second-hand searchers.
(McRobbie, 1988: 29)
Although the second-hand clothes on sale at the flea market are priced relatively
affordably, the connoisseurship required to discern vintage clothing and partake
successfully in display strategies of style and fashion borders on a ―thinly-veiled cultural
elitism‖ (ibid). To exploit the aesthetics of decontextualization and wear used clothing as
a novelty instead of necessity requires consumers to possess cultural capital that is more
often than not, associated with those of a certain class. Crewe and Gregson (2003: 8) note
that the practices of consumption of second-hand goods that juxtapose items purchased
second-hand with those that are first-hand are used as a marker of distinction and
discernment that is associated with the middle classes. Indeed, all of the shoppers
interviewed come from middle to upper class family backgrounds, and most of them hold
executive or professional positions in various industries. The purported friendly
atmosphere promoted by the flea market organizer and experienced by shoppers‘ initial
tactile interactions while rummaging gives way to the connoisseurship involved in
successfully selecting and displaying vintage clothing, and thus becomes more of an
exercise in exclusion and cultural elitism rather than one of inclusion.
5.3.2: Consuming Vintage in a Quest for Authenticity
Vintage as anti-mass production
Browsing and rummaging for vintage items of clothing thus forms an important
aspect of shopping at the flea market, as it contributes to the imaginings and narratives of
85
the flea market as a romanticized, authentic32 experience. Ironically then, the exclusivity
and elitism induced by the consumers‘ aforementioned connoisseurship actually stems
from the shoppers‘ quest for authenticity that is closely tied to the flea market‘s founding
principles of non-profit-making motives and artistic integrity33, both of which as has been
explored, connote notions of sociality and inclusiveness. Like some of the vendors who
denounce the brand-new ‗mass-produced‘ clothes sold at the flea market, shoppers also
seem to partake in similar discourse when discussing the reasons they prefer vintage
clothing, as Crystal, Sarah and Sharon explain, respectively:
The main reason why I like vintage is because I hate to look like everyone
else. Because Singapore is small . . . you find that people everywhere are
wearing the same thing. It‘s so annoying! . . . And vintage I think is
actually unique, it‘s individual. And I like weird stuff and vintage has
funny details . . . funny details or certain collars, it could be embroidery,
could be lace or even a structured one (collar) . . . that‘s the main reason
why I like vintage because it‘s not mass commercialized. . . The next ten
people can‘t buy the same thing as what you are wearing.
Because vintage stuff is unique and buying them from flea markets . . .
you (will) know that they are one-of-a-kind.
I think vintage is something very special. I don‘t know because I‘m
someone who likes old stuff . . . And I like vintage because the
workmanship is really good and you can see that they put in effort to make
the certain piece of item and it‘s not so mass-produced I feel.
32
See Chapter 4, section 4.2.2 for a discussion of the flea market‘s perceived authenticity.
33
See Chapter 3, section 3.3 for an explanation of the organizers‘ conception of their flea market as a non-profitmaking space to share ‗art‘ and socialize.
86
As has been previously discussed34, ‗mass-produced‘ items are perceived by vendors to
betray the authenticity of the flea market, as they bring to fore the highly-commoditized
dimension of the object, betraying the non-profit-making principles of the flea market.
Shoppers at the flea market see themselves as partaking in ―alternative practices‖ of
consumption that reject mass-production and mass-consumerism (Crewe and Gregson,
2003: 105-106). Indeed, wearing vintage clothing has been thought to be ―subversive‖, as
a way to ‗cheat‘ the fashion industry by way of wearing for example, a quality dress
outside its time, hence becoming a ―fashion pioneer‖ who ―stands convention on its
head‖ (Lovasz in Hillis and Petit (eds.), 2006: 285). Shoppers like Crystal, Sarah and
Sharon also articulate their preference for vintage clothing for similar reasons. The
‗uniqueness‘, good ―workmanship‖ non-―mass commercialized‖ nature of vintage
clothing ensures that they are objects that although placed on sale and hence a commodity,
remain very much ―individual‖ and ―one-of-a-kind‖—in other words, arguably, singular.
Such properties of singularity are found in Crystal‘s appreciation of ―funny details‖ such
as different types of collars—―embroidery‖, ―lace‖, ―structured‖—and is cited as the
―main reason‖ why she likes vintage clothing. There is also a perceived quality produced
by the ―workmanship‖ and ―effort‖ that shoppers like Sharon feel go into the making of
clothing in the past—something that is seen as antithetical to the mass-produced clothing
of today. These nostalgic characteristics are seen to imbue vintage clothing with
uniqueness not found in first-hand, ‗mass-produced‘ clothing, and its rarity is ensured by
the passage of time. Attempts to differentiate oneself through adornment are regarded as
all the more necessary in the ―small‖, densely-populated city-state that is Singapore,
34
See Chapter 4, Section 4.2.2 for a discussion of the flea market‘s perceived authenticity.
87
where ―people everywhere are wearing the same thing‖ (Crystal). The close proximity
and the small land area within which urbanites co-exist is seen to increase the chances of
dressing identically to the next person, and vintage clothing offers consumers in
Singapore a chance to quell this anxiety and seek to differentiate themselves.
Vintage in alternative and peripheral retail spaces
Additionally, shopping from an alternative retail space like the flea market further
singularizes the vintage clothing, as the rummaging, searching and subsequent
discernment constitutes ―an important component in the practice of the ‗authentic‘ style
as a means to perform identity and construct difference, in contrast to the consumers of
mass-fashion‖ who shop in ‗conventional‘ retail spaces such as shopping malls (Gregson
et. al., 2001: 17 from JenB in Clark and Palmer (eds.), 2005: 184). The projected and
perceived authenticity of the flea market is further cemented in these practices of buying
that allow consumers to use the ―symbolic value‖ (Crewe and Gregson, 2003: 35) of such
types of retail spaces and locations35 to differentiate themselves. The organizers in this
study have held flea market sessions at a night club, the gentrified old parliament house
and a café at Dempsey Hill. A night club can be seen as a type of hyper-space as ―it bears
no relation to any reality whatsoever‖ and ―masks the absence of a basic reality‖
(Baudrillard, 1988: 170 from Low and Lawrence-Zuniga, 2003: 32). It is a place where
people go to escape the routines of the mundane every-day. Thus, the juxtaposition of the
35
Most flea markets have no fixed location or purpose-built structures to house them and are thus held at locations
built for other functions. For example, flea markets in the U.S. are held in old drive-in movie theatres (Maisel, 1974),
fair grounds (Sherry, 1990a; 1990b), closed service stations and parking lots (Miller, 1988). Similarly, many flea
markets in Singapore are held at locations that were not built for retail, such as museums, night clubs and open
spaces such as Dempsey Hill.
88
flea market against a backdrop that transforms into a hyper-space with its ―own pure
simulacrum‖ (ibid), provides an interesting, dynamic use of space. This juxtaposition is
blurred when the club‘s bar continues to serve drinks when flea markets are held there
and when a deejay spins music at the club‘s deejay console. The presence of music and
alcohol contributed to a seemingly festive mood. An otherwise empty place in the day,
the interaction between the space of the club and the flea market can be seen to create a
‗symbiosis‘ of sorts, where the atmosphere of each feeds off the other. The locations of
the old parliament house and Dempsey Hill, both of which are on the periphery of prime
retail locations, lend credence to the ‗alternative practices‘ of vintage shopping, and add
to the appeal that to be aware of flea markets there is to be fashionably ‗in-the-know‘36.
Crewe and Gregson (2003: 35) note that to sell second-hand goods like vintage clothing
that are characterised by distinction and discernment, ―requires that exchange itself be
located within retail spaces that themselves are constituted through such meanings‖. The
strict regulations and restrictions imposed on street hawkers and vendors by urbanplanning authorities (Yeoh, 1996: 243-280; Dewar and Watson, 1990: 93) do not apply
here, as the largely confined and relatively private spaces of the flea market locations are
not seen as chaotic or disruptive to public order. Instead, there is a ―symbolic
positioning‖ (Crewe and Gregson, 2003: 39) of the flea markets held in these locations,
as they connote meanings that add to the consumers‘ perceived authenticity of the flea
market and vintage clothing sold there.
36
Clark (in Clark and Palmer (eds.), 2005: 184) notes that in the case of vintage shops in Hong Kong: ―As the shops
were not evident at street level, part of their appeal was that to know about them meant being in the fashion ‗know‘
locally. Owned by young entrepreneurs, not large global conglomerates, the merchandise, space and the
environment were the antithesis of brand name stores.‖
89
Vintage, cultural biographies and ‘value (co-)creation’
Distinguishing vintage pieces from other used clothing requires, as discussed, a
nuanced connoisseurship. This is then used to conjure up narratives of authenticity that
are both tied to the clothing as well as the flea market. These imbued characteristics that
singularize vintage clothing bring to fore another crucial dimension of second-hand
goods sold at the flea market—the biography (Kopytoff, 1986) of the things sold. As has
been discussed in Chapter 4, many vendors at the flea market make the effort to pass on
stories of their used possessions onto interested buyers, enhancing the value of the good
by thus singularizing it. This is not lost on shoppers who also actively seek out the stories
behind the vintage clothing they buy. If the biographies of second-hand clothing are
significant to their value, those of clothing that are regarded as ‗vintage‘ arguably play an
even more crucial role. In my conversations and interviews with shoppers, the ‗histories‘
and ‗stories‘ behind vintage clothing are often cited as important reasons why they buy
such goods. Used clothing sold at The Flea that are explicitly labelled as ‗vintage‘ have
their vendors claiming that they are more than a decade old. None of the vendors were
keen to reveal the exact source of their ‗supplies‘ and were vague in their descriptions,
simply stating that they were bought from ―all around Asia‖37. Unlike vendors who were
selling personal possessions, vendors selling what they claimed were vintage clothing
were thus unable to provide a full story or history of the garment. Nevertheless, shoppers
readily picked up on the vendors‘ claims of the age of these vintage clothing, and
37
Some informal research done by asking friends and acquaintances who are in the apparel and fashion industry led
to speculation that these vintage clothes were probably imported from Thailand. However, I am at the time of
research, unable to ascertain this.
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developed narratives and histories, often imagined, of their own and cite them as reasons
why they like vintage clothing. Sharon explains her interest in ‗vintage‘ clothing:
I think it‘s really amazing because you can see that for every era it‘s a
different style, a distinctive style and it coincides with the particular
culture of that year . . . that few years.
Similarly, Sarah concurs:
If it‘s from 70‘s then I‘ll imagine how it is like back then . . . like hippie or
boho (bohemian) . . . so simple. Or 80‘s and ‗90s, same thing . . . I‘ll think
this dress or top is from that time and how it is (was) back then and stuff
like that . . . I wonder how that person (the previous owner) lived . . . in
those days. I‘ll think like what is so special about it, how I can wear it
(now) and how life was like (then). So vintage can really let you know
more about history . . . that‘s why I buy it.
When the biographical particularities of the clothes are unavailable, shoppers like Sharon
and Sarah come up with their own. These projected biographies are not entirely fictitious
in that they are based on some prior knowledge of history—for example, the ―hippie‖ and
―boho‖ culture of the 1970s, and the many ―special‖ and ―distinctive styles‖ of dress in
the respective decades. There is also a sense of nostalgia in these projections, as shoppers
often refer to past decades as ―simple‖ and the clothes in a way invoke notions of this
romanticized past. These vintage clothes then become a physical link to an imagined,
untouchable past, creating a bridge between the present consumers and those of decades
past. Indeed, Lovasz (in Hillis and Petit (eds.), 2006: 283-293) takes the discussion
further by arguing for an embodied link between past and present (female) owners
through a physical choreography of gender experienced by wearing vintage dresses, as
those produced in the 1930s and 1950s were cut such that women‘s movements were
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restricted according to highly patriarchal gender ideologies of that time38. Although
shoppers did not express their experiences of wearing vintage quite so reflexively, they
did however, like Sarah, ―wonder how that person‖—the previous owners—led their
lives, imagining personal biographies not only of the thing itself, but also of the people
who owned and used them. By projecting such biographies and narrative onto vintage
clothing, shoppers contribute to the perceived authenticity of the flea market by
singularizing such goods and shifting them away from the sphere of the pure commodity,
seeing them instead as personal artifacts with emotional attachments and history,
inalienable and unadulterated by commercial motives. This coincides, yet again with The
Flea‘s founding principles of non-profit-making motives, allowing both organizers and
vendors to use these imagined biographies, narratives and histories to reinforce the myth
of authenticity surrounding the flea market, partaking in ―value (co-)creation‖ (Foster,
2007). The creation of surplus value through the extraction of labor is not done solely at
the production end of the commodity chain, but at upon and after consumption—in other
words, it is ―consumption work‖ (Foster, 2005: 11). Branding also involves the work of
consumers, as their meaningful use of the purchased products invests those products with
the consumer‘s identity, which in turn create emotional attachments to the brand (Foster,
2005: 11). Consumers actively, albeit unconsciously, partake in the discourse of
authenticity that surrounds vintage clothing, and in this case, interestingly, also the flea
market itself, producing their own narratives that vendors and organizers leverage upon
to enhance the value and brand of their goods and retail space respectively. Like
38
For example, bodices of dresses from the 1950s restricted upper body movement, unlike the loose-fitting or
stretchy tops that are fashionable today. Similarly, tight waistlines found in dresses also restricted breathing to the
top part of one‘s chest.
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consumers of branded goods, shoppers at the flea market thus ―pay again and again to
recover the outcomes and means of their own productivity and subjectivity‖ (Foster, 2007:
719). The consumption of vintage clothing bought at the flea market thus creates a
symbiosis of sorts, where organizers, vendors and shoppers all partake in the discourse of
authenticity by feeding off (imagined) narratives of cultural biography.
5.4: Conclusion
Shoppers at the flea market display behaviours, like browsing and looking, as well
as rummaging and searching, that are not always unique to such retail spaces. However,
the rampant sale of second-hand goods, many of which are regarded as ‗vintage‘ clothing,
reveal aspects of consumer behavior and consumption practices that are unique to this
retail space and set-up. When it comes to vintage clothing, discernment plays an
important role in the process of rummaging and searching and this leads to the shoppers‘
development of particularities of taste and nuanced connoisseurship. There is a slight
elitism and snobbery involved in the possession of such cultural capital and this is often
displayed through the consumers‘ sartorial mix of old and contemporary items of clothing
in a way that ascertains that they are ‗in-the-know‘ about fashion and trends. Although
such connoisseurship excludes many, shoppers of vintage clothing at the flea market still
partake in a discourse of authenticity that is tied closely to their belief of the flea market
as an inclusive and alternative space. This quest for authenticity is expressed through the
shoppers‘ disdain for mass-produced clothing and preference instead for vintage clothing.
The fact that vintage clothing are bought at an alternative retail space at the peripheries of
commercial activity, like the flea market, adds to the symbolic value of the things
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purchased and further feeds into the discourse of authenticity. The quest for authenticity
amongst shoppers at the flea market has also led the projected histories, cultural
biographies and narratives of vintage clothing, further singularizing the goods and
perceiving them less as commodities and more as irreplaceable artifacts that are of
greater value. The resultant emotional attachments invoked in consumers are not lost on
the organizer and vendors, resulting in the harnessing of the surplus value produced
through consumption work. This value (co-)creation sees the organizer, vendors and
consumers in a symbiotic relationship of sorts, each contributing to and drawing from the
discourse of authenticity surrounding the flea market. Although not conducted in the
retail space of the shopping mall that is iconic to Singapore‘s consumption culture,
consumer behavior in this flea market is nevertheless dynamic, interesting and highly
complex.
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Chapter 6: Interaction and the Terms of Exchange: Pricing and
Bargaining in Transactions at the Flea Market
A significant benefit of the informal economy and its retail set-ups has been
argued to be the flexibility it affords both its consumers and vendors (Cross and Morales,
2007). This flexibility allows for price mechanisms that may go beyond mere economic
self-interest—exchanges that take place in these settings also represent and reinforce
social ties (ibid). While formal retail set-ups partake in price-fixing practices that
supposedly follow ‗modern‘, rational market mechanisms (ibid), the ―bazaar economy‖
(Geertz, 1963) was deemed as pre-modern and had alternate means for determining
prices in its own unique contexts and exchange conditions. Bazaars have also been
described as mere ―folk economics‖ (Geertz, 1978; 1979), rendering the price
determinants that take place in these set-ups as ―exotic and bizarre‖ phenomena (from
Fanselow, 1990: 250). Such notions of this bazaar economy have also been associated
with the workings behind most informal retail settings such as street markets, yet again
relegating the price-setting practices in these spaces to the realm of the exotic Other from
a perceived faraway time and space, that should be phased out according to developments
made in the economy.
One of the most significant and fascinating price-setting practices that have come
to characterize informal retail spaces and differentiate them from formal ones—arguably,
the presence of which has become a defining factor in identifying the former—is price
negotiation, or more commonly known as bargaining39. Alexander and Alexander (1992:
39
Bargaining is also known as haggling or dickering, but as most informants in this study almost never refer to such
price negotiating behavior using the latter terms, the former term will be used throughout discussions of price
negotiation in this paper.
95
506) note that the prevalence of bargaining—―negotiations in which both buyer and seller
take active roles in setting the price—rather than publicly available posted prices is a
major reason why bazaar economies are viewed as less developed and less efficient than
markets in industrialized societies‖. It is assumed that bargaining is a primitive pricesetting method that is only a mere step up from barter trade, and often interpreted as an
―adaptation of information deficiencies in bazaar economies‖ (ibid). Despite these
associations with the exotic, backward and irrational, bargaining has nevertheless been
documented and discussed extensively in literature exploring the interactions between
sellers and buyers in informal, periodic marketplaces in ‗developed‘ economies, such as
garage sales in the U.S. (Herrmann, 2003; 2004) and car boot sales in the U.K. (Crewe
and Gregson, 1997; 1998: 45; 2003: 58-62; Hibbert, Horne and Stone, 1996: 10-12).
Price-setting is also known to take place via bargaining in flea markets in the U.S.
(Maisel, 1974; Sherry, 1990a; 1990b), and this practice is no exception to the one studied
in this paper—albeit carried out in different ways. Locally, the pasar malam has been
noted to have one of its strengths lie in the affordable prices it offers to consumers
through practices of bargaining (Ibrahim and Leong, 2003: 185). Bargaining is a key
practice that can influence interaction and inform exchange relations that take place in
such alternative retail spaces, not always adhering to price-fixing strategies, but allowing
instead, for a more flexible negotiation between buyers and sellers. It is this form of
interaction—bargaining—that this chapter turns to, in an attempt to shed light not only on
the relations between vendors and shoppers, but also on conceptions of the value of the
things sold.
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6.1: The Price-setting Strategies at the Flea Market: The Communication of Prices
Herrmann (2003: 239) has noted that bargaining is often considered by ‗Western‘
culture as ―irrational or pre-rational, something practiced (only) by the essentialized
exotic Other‖ devoid of price-setting rationalities. To presume that price negotiation takes
place for every transaction at the flea market will be to contribute to such erroneous,
exoticizing discourses of informal retail settings as simple, uninformed economic
operations that ignore the complexities behind exchange relations in these unique
conditions. Even in supposed ‗exotic‘ and ‗pre-modern‘ locales40, the use of bargaining in
transactions depends on specific conditions such as the availability of information of the
quality and quantity of the goods to buyers and sellers. Despite being located in an urban,
‗economically-developed‘, and hence, ‗rational‘ context, however, bargaining features in
some transactions at the flea market in this study, transcending notions of the practice‘s
association with the rural, exotic marketplace of the bazaar. It is imperative at this point,
however, to raise a caveat that bargaining does not characterize all transactions and
exchanges that take place at the flea market studied in this paper, and that despite its
flexibility, price negotiation is not always de rigueur in all exchanges in these alternative
retail spaces. To present a more holistic and contextual picture of how, when and why
bargaining takes place, it is crucial to situate bargaining within modes of price
communication at the flea market, and the opportunities and conditions these priceconveying methods present for price negotiation. Prices of the goods sold at the flea
market in this study are conveyed to shoppers in several ways:
40
For example, the Kalakkadu bazaar in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu studied by Fanselow, 1990.
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i.
A common way through which prices of goods are communicated to shoppers is through
price signs, where prices are conveyed through written or printed signs, prominently
displayed at the stall. Stalls using price signs usually have several of these pasted on
clothing racks, tables or bargain bins respectively. Each price sign usually conveys the
price for a set or category of goods at a particular stall, for example, ‗bargain bins‘ have a
standard price for all items placed in it. Goods deemed to be of equal value are grouped
together and placed under one price sign.
ii.
Price tags are more uncommon at the flea market, as they require prices to be written or
printed out and attached to individual items, making it a lot more time-consuming,
labour-intensive and less cost-effective. Price tags that convey the price of individual
items sold are usually found at stalls selling hand-made costume jewelry or clothes to
highlight the supposed ‗one-of-a-kind‘ characteristic of the good.
iii.
I have also observed, over the course of fieldwork at The Flea, several stalls that have a
‗name your price‘ pricing strategy, explicitly encouraging shoppers to approach the
vendors and state the prices that they are willing to pay. This ensures that vendors interact
directly with interested customers, and sets up conducive conditions for bargaining to
take place
iv.
There are also many stalls where there is an absence of any sort of listing of price. Goods
are simply displayed for sale and shoppers have to ask the vendor for the price of the
good they are interested in. Pricing under such circumstances may be arbitrary and allows
the vendors to convey prices on a case-by-case basis, allowing them to alter it according
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to the situation. The necessity of interaction between vendors and interested customers in
these cases also sets up a premise for potential bargaining to take place.
Bargaining may or may not take place after such communication of the prices
depending also on other factors like the type of goods in question, the exchange of
information, time and its perceived commodity status. Fanselow (1990: 251) notes that
―information asymmetry‖ at the bazaar places buyers at an advantage over sellers, giving
the former more bargaining power over the latter, as it is the seller who gives up
something uncertain in value (the good) for that which is certain (money). The
standardization of product quality and quantity then becomes a condition for product
substitutability and seeks to balance this information asymmetry between buyer and seller
(ibid: 252). For example, basic foodstuffs that are sold to consumers regularly in small
quantities create a large number of precedents for buyers, allowing them to monitor
prices closely and hence making price adjustments by the sellers more difficult to
implement (ibid). On the other hand, it is noted that ―the rarer the good or the larger the
quantities bought, the fewer the precedents to which the buyer can refer‖, creating a price
uncertainty for the buyer and allowing sellers to leverage on this to increase their profits
through price adjustments (ibid). Fixed prices are in comparison, less efficient in
economic terms than bargaining as they are relatively inflexible and unresponsive to the
wants and needs of particular consumers, and respond only slowly to fluctuations in
demand (Alexander and Alexander, 1992: 507). It is under such conditions that
bargaining becomes an important price-making mechanism at the bazaar.
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6.2 Bargaining Behavior at the Flea Market
Much of the literature documenting the on-goings in alternative retail spaces such
as garage sales and flea markets have highlighted a spectrum of bargaining practices that
span from being positive encounters that promote sociability between vendors and
shoppers, to negative ones that imply anti-social behavior (Crewe and Gregson, 2003;
Herrmann, 2003; Maisel, 1974; Sherry, 1990a; 1990b). The bargaining encounters at the
flea market studied in this paper are no different, reflecting beliefs and values of things
that are shared by the vendors, shoppers and organizers alike. The data from this study
suggest that vendors and shoppers usually hold ambivalent attitudes when it comes to
bargaining, not always embracing but neither always dismissing it as a desirable practice
at the flea market. What it clear, however, are the contextual occurrences of bargaining in
informing their attitudes towards this price-setting mechanism—that is, whether or not
bargaining is welcomed by vendors, or seen as enjoyable by shoppers, depends very
much on each situation, and both the positive and negative aspects of each transaction are
constantly negotiated.
6.2.1 Positive Bargaining Experiences
Herrmann (2003: 242) notes that the positive experiences of bargaining in U.S.
garage sales are infused with qualities valued in American culture—―shopping skills,
such as keen eyes, decisiveness, knowledge of consumer goods and prices; skill in
negotiating; and most important, getting a deal‖. While positive experiences of
bargaining in the flea market in this study do not entirely reflect to these values so prized
in the U.S., they do, nevertheless, possess characteristics that not only resonate with
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pleasurable consumer experiences writ large, but is also greatly heightens and enhances
them.
‘Soft’ bargaining: Being socially engaged
Many bargaining encounters observed and experienced at the flea market take the
form of ―soft bargaining‖ (Balogun, 1991 from Herrmann, 2003) where shoppers and
vendors engage in a sort of reserved and calculated negotiation over the price of the good
involved, always cautious of not overstepping the boundaries of amicability. An excerpt
from my field notes illustrates one of my own encounters with bargaining:
A dress hanging on the rack at the stall proclaiming to sell vintage dresses
caught my eye while I was rummaging through it. A tag tied to it with
white thread read ―Soda Pop dress‖ in handwriting and listed the price as
$42. I put the dress against my body and asked my friend who
accompanied me how it looked, as there was no mirror in sight. Once my
friend‘s approval and opinion were sought, I politely approached the
vendor—a young woman in her mid-twenties, whom I observed had
already noticed my interest in the dress and was now smiling at me—and
asked for the price of the dress. This was despite the clear listing of the
price on the tag. I was, admittedly, hoping to ask for a discount on the
price:
Researcher: Hi, how much is this?
Vendor (picking up the price tag and looking at it): It‘s $42 (smiles)
R: Can you give me a cheaper price? Please? (smiling hopefully)
V: I‘m sorry. It‘s vintage. I‘m already selling at a very special price at this
flea (market).
I looked endearingly at the dress and turned to my friend, asking her if I
should get it, admittedly feigning disappointment in hopes of garnering
some sympathy from the vendor to give me a discount. It worked:
V: Ok, I‘ll give you a 10% discount. Just for you, ok? (smiles)
R: How much will that be?
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V (taking out her calculator, typing onto it and then showing it to me):
$37.80.
R (almost in a mock pleading tone): Can (it be) cheaper? Please?
V (sounding apologetic): Sorry, I really can‘t. Even my friends get only a
10% discount.
R (hesitating): Hmmm . . . Ok. I‘ll take it. I really like it.
V: Ok, thank you! Will you like to join my mailing list?
R: Sure! (I proceeded to write my name and email address on the form she
provided.)
V (after looking at my details on the form): Thanks, Lynette!
The vendor then proceeded to fold the dress up, hand it to me and
collected the money. Later that evening, she recognized me at the train
station when I was making my way back from the flea market, and
approached me to tell me how happy she was that I ―liked her stuff‖ (that
she was selling) and thanked me again for my purchase. I was also
surprised that she remembered me and addressed me by name.
The above anecdote encompasses several aspects of positive experiences of bargaining
that Herrmann (2003: 250) notes are ―socially engaged‖ encounters. In this case, the
encounter started off with me politely greeting the vendor before asking for the selling
price of the dress, smiling and being very careful not to overstep any boundaries. The
greeting and opening question allowed me to ease into bargaining without displaying any
sort of aggression that might suggest anti-social behavior. A ―discount‖ was then
suggested by me, again in a courteous, cautious manner and bargaining hence ensued,
with her final offer of a ―10% discount‖ and my acceptance of her proposed price. This
sort of ‗soft bargaining‘ involves an awareness of sociability, remains cordial throughout
the interaction and is relatively brief. It is more persuasive than confrontational, and
fosters a sense of amicability. Even in some other situations which have been observed,
unsuccessful bargaining—where the shopper and vendor do not eventually agree on a
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price—that takes the soft bargaining approach almost always ends cordially, with either
vendor, shopper or both parties smiling politely and walking away. Although no strong
social relations are forged, none are aggressively breached either. There is no outward
display of displeasure. Instead, ―gradual concessions‖ are made so that encounters remain
―more sociable, friendly and humourous‖ (Herrmann, 2003: 241).
On the other hand, this ‗gentle‘ approach to bargaining can also be, in some cases,
indicative of a reluctance to engage in price negotiation in the first place. As Elaine, a
flea market shopper who also frequents similar markets on her trips abroad explains her
approach and attitudes towards bargaining:
I‘m very bad at bargaining. . . I would try but I‘m not very good at it. Like
if they give me a price I‘m like ‗cheaper can?‖ then buy it. Or if I think it‘s
too expensive then I just don‘t buy it.
Elaine‘s self-professed disinterest in bargaining could be another explanation behind the
prevalence of the soft bargaining approach. Instead of pursuing her desire for a ‗cheaper‘
price, she gives up after the first offering of a lower price, and prefers to end her
bargaining without purchase or any agreement over price. Shoppers who approach a
bargain cordially may simply be self-conscious of their perceived lack of proficiency in
bargaining. Despite her indifference and self-professed lack of skill in bargaining,
however, Elaine‘s nonchalant approach, as with mine in the anecdote above, is one where
care is taken not to suggest any intention of conflict. Moreover, shoppers who engage in
the acts of browsing and rummaging41 at the flea market do not necessarily have the
intention of making a purchase, and cordial ways of trying to start a bargain may merely
41
See Section 5.2.1 and Section 5.2.2 in Chapter 5.
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be another way through which casual interaction can be induced. Unlike more invested
rituals of bargaining, such forms of soft bargaining at the flea market do not always
involve the ―overt commitment to discussing price‖ (Maisel, 1974: 498). Nevertheless,
regardless of intention, soft bargaining serves as an experiential way through which
shoppers and vendors alike may engage in brief, but nonetheless, pleasant encounters and
exchanges which contribute to the overall perceptions and sociability of the flea market
atmosphere.
Bargaining as a sense of achievement for vendors
When a deal is struck through the successful negotiation of price between both
parties, however, a sense of achievement and satisfaction is experienced. While much of
the literature documents such sentiments of fulfillment among shoppers who are
successful in their bargains (Crewe and Gregson, 2003; Sherry, 1990a; 1990b; Herrmann,
2003), this sense of satisfaction does not end with shoppers, but also extends and applies
to vendors as well. As illustrated by my successful negotiation for the dress in the
anecdote above, the vendor expressed her happiness and gratitude towards my purchase,
approaching me to thank me even after the flea market had ended. Similarly, Beth, who
sells women‘s apparel at the flea market, cites a pleasant bargaining encounter with one
of her customers:
There‘s this lady . . . She bought 3 of my tops. She did bargain. I was
selling one for $19.90. For that day I was having a promotion, one for
$19.90, two for $35.90. So she bought three and she wanted them at
$50. . .and we (eventually) settled them for $52. And she actually offered
to. . .promote my stuff to her friends. . . So of course I was happy.
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Like the vendor from whom I bought the dress, Beth recounts the above anecdote with
satisfaction, emphasizing how ―happy‖ she was with the encounter. Even though a
reduced price may lower the profit margins for vendors, they nevertheless derive a sense
of satisfaction from successful encounters of soft bargaining. Two points concerning the
value and commodity status of goods may be implied from this sense of satisfaction
among vendors. Firstly, by agreeing amicably on a particular price, the abovementioned
anecdotes and similar occurrences observed signal an agreement between vendors and
shoppers on the ―regimes of value‖ (Appadurai, 1986: 4) of the goods in question.
Essentially, a successful bargain that is also a pleasant experience implies similar
valuations of the good in question by both shopper and vendor. For example, for Beth to
come to an agreement of a price of $52 for three items of clothing with the interested
customer was a validation of the perceived value of her goods. Similarly, for the vendor
of vintage clothing who sold me the dress, her joy from the transaction was derived from
my relatively easy-going agreement to the ―10% discount‖ in price she offered me for the
dress. As discussed in the previous chapters, certain things sold at the flea market, such as
vintage items of clothing, are perceived by shoppers to possess symbolic value and other
characteristics, such as quality, that contribute to their singularity and downplay their
commodity aspect. For a deal to be struck through successful bargaining and for the
interaction to be a positive sociable experience, the tensions between a good‘s perceived
singularity and commodity aspects must be negotiated and reconciled between both
parties. Paradoxically and interestingly, however, in bargaining, judgement of the extent
to which a good is singular—judgements which draw on ―various evaluations, including
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conventional prices themselves, the brand and/or label, the quality, newness and taste‖
(Crewe and Gregson, 1998: 46)—are articulated through its monetary value.
Secondly, although prices were explicitly posted in both of the abovementioned
cases, the vendors and shoppers involved did not take them to be objective assessments
of value. Alexander (1992) notes that ‗Western‘, or ‗developed‘ economies often hold the
belief that there exists a ―fair price‖ that is somehow objectively based on accurately
capturing the cost of producing goods, associating it with the concept of objective value
(from Herrmann, 2003: 239). Similarly, Crewe and Gregson (1998: 46) note that ―value
is never an inherent property of objects but rather a judgment made about them by
consumers (Appadurai, 1986: 3) and through negotiation‖. The practice of having fixed
prices has also been seen to be an indicator of efficiency and objectivity in rational
economies (Alexander and Alexander, 1991: 506). However, in the case of this flea
market in the highly-developed economy of Singapore, the display of fixed prices is not
taken to be the final valuation of a good, but instead, invitations for bargaining to take
place. This allows for relatively flexible judgments of value that are otherwise not found
in more conventional retail spaces that prohibit bargaining, or where bargaining is not the
norm. Moreover, in such positive cases of bargaining, negotiations are usually not
protracted encounters, but kept relatively brief, and thus may be seen as ―quick, efficient
and equitable means of agreeing on a price‖ (Alexander and Alexander, 1991: 507)—
once again debunking the myth that bargaining is an inefficient price-setting mechanism.
Bargaining as enhancing value for shoppers
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As just one of the multi-faceted experiential dimensions of the flea market,
bargaining plays an important role in being part of and giving meaning to consumption.
Sherry (1990a: 26) notes that ―consumers seek pleasure from the self-illusory experiences
constructed from meanings associated with products: this imaginative pleasure-seeking is
the essential activity of consumption‖. As a participatory experience, bargaining allows
consumers to imbue their consumption practices with meanings that are otherwise not
found in retail environments where price-fixing is the norm. For shoppers at the flea
market, bargaining encounters constitute such meaning-creating and meaning-sustaining
acts in several ways. Firstly, shoppers at the flea market who treat bargaining as a
pleasurable experience, usually describe price negotiation as something enjoyable and a
crucial way to fully experience what the flea market has to offer. Marie, a college student
explains:
Of course, I want to get it (buy) cheap. . . But it‘s also fun (to bargain).
See how much I can slash the price, how I can influence them (vendors) to
give me the price that I want, or a better price. I mean, if you don‘t want to
bargain . . . if you don‘t like it then why go to fleas (flea markets)?
For Marie, bargaining is perceived as an inseparable dimension of the flea market, and is
the reason she shops at the flea market in the first place. She finds it ―fun‖ to be able to
interact with vendors and influence them into ‗slashing‘ their prices to give in to her
offers of a lower price. Maisel (1974: 499) argues that when bargaining is ―taken in the
spirit of play, it becomes fun‖ as it constitutes ―part of the action‖. Moreover, the ability
to seemingly control prices through influential social interactions may be seen as a source
of consumer ―empowerment‖ that eventually contributes to a greater sense of ―postpurchase satisfaction‖ for the shopper. (Herrmann, 2004: 74). My own aforementioned
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encounter in bargaining for the dress was also taken lightheartedly, and although I did
hope that the vendor would lower her offering price more, I was nevertheless satisfied
that I managed to cajole the vendor into giving me a discount and purchase it for less than
the listed price. Other shoppers have also expressed similar sentiments of joy and
satisfaction in their bargaining encounters, also describing them as ―fun‖, ―almost
challenging‖ and ―part of the experience‖ of shopping at the flea market.
Secondly, this sense of pleasure derived from treating bargaining in the spirit of
fun and play is also closely linked to using bargaining as a demonstration of skill. Just as
how consumers of vintage clothing take pride in putting together outfits that signal their
knowledge in fashion and possession of cultural capital, shoppers similarly use
bargaining as a demonstration of skill and thrift. This is especially true of consumers of
second-hand goods sold at the flea market, as prices are not usually listed and shoppers
are sometimes, as described earlier, invited to ‗name their price‘. Sarah explains her pride
in successfully bargaining for an item:
It‘s not that I want to be cheap (miserly) . . . but I do feel quite good when
I can get it cheap . . . the price I want. . . I feel like I‘m good at it. I think
I‘m quite good at bargaining (laughs). . . And of course if I manage to find
something really nice . . . like there was this Topshop42 blazer that looked
really new, I got it for only $50 (after bargaining) . . . it was selling for at
least like 100plus bucks (dollars) at the shop! So I feel very happy, like
‗Hey, I got the same thing but (for) cheaper!‘. If I can get it cheaper, then
why not right?
For shoppers like Sarah, being ―good‖ at bargaining is seen as somewhat of a skill, as she
is able to purchase the ‗same thing‘, a ―Topshop blazer‖ for less. She is also clear that she
42
A British high-street label selling both women and men‘s apparel that has several branches all across shopping
malls in Singapore.
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does not want to be viewed as ―cheap‖ or miserly, rather as someone who takes
advantage of her bargaining skills to get something for ―cheaper‖ than retail price. Crewe
and Gregson (2003: 102-103) note that shoppers at car boot sales in the U.K. who partake
in bargaining often engage in ―bargain boasting‖ where they talk about their bargained
purchases with pride to imply their skills as ―clever‖, ―thrifty‖ shoppers. Although it is
unclear if shoppers like Sarah go to the extent of boasting about their said purchases to
their peers, they nevertheless do see bargaining as a useful skill to have when shopping at
a flea market, where they can get brand-name products for a fraction of the retail price. In
such situations, ‗capturing‘ value becomes a core premise of the transaction, and may
sometimes be a determinant whether or not shoppers choose to purchase something. It is
noted that shoppers who engage in bargaining view goods first as ‗a bargain‘ then as a
specific object, in a bid to identifying potential transactions that capture ―maximum
value‖ (ibid: 58). Shoppers I spoke to admitted to ―impulse‖ purchases that they made at
the flea because they felt that the items were ―too good a deal‖ to have been passed up,
that they were ―cheap‖, purchases that they felt were of more value than what they paid
for, especially after bargaining for them.
Thirdly, this value that shoppers feel they capture through striking a good bargain
and paying a lower price for something that is of a higher perceived value may
paradoxically enhance the value of the good in question. This is because ―the bargaining
process provides the opportunity for the buyer to contribute to something personal to the
transaction‖ (Herrmann, 1997: 921), allowing shoppers to associate their purchase with
something more than its price alone. Shoppers fondly recall some of the purchases they
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have made at the flea market after bargaining. Sharon and Crystal provide examples of
this recollection, respectively:
There was this (second-hand) sweater . . . it was $7 but I managed to get it
for $5 (after bargaining). Quite new too. Barely-worn I think.
It‘s funny (strange). . . Sometimes I buy the stuff (from the flea market)
and after damn long (a long time) I still remember how much I bargained
for (she paid for it).
Both Sharon and Crystal, like Sarah, have recollections of the prices of the things they
bargained for at the flea market, even after a ―long‖ time (Crystal) after their purchase.
Sharon, for example, remembers that she paid $5 for a ―barely-worn‖ sweater that would
otherwise have cost $7 if not for her bargaining. Similarly, Sarah recalled how she paid
only $50 for a blazer that was going for ―100 plus bucks‖ at retail price, and Crystal
claims to till recall the price of items she bargained for. Bargaining interactions serve to
‗singularize‘ (Kopytoff, 1986) the goods in question, ―making them special‖ as
―shoppers also have the opportunity to actively construct the prices through bargaining
instead of passively accepting the posted ones‖ (Herrmann, 2003: 249). Shoppers like
Sharon, Crystal and Sarah, not only focus on the value that they have captured through
their bargains, but also, whether deliberately or not, add another irreplaceable facet to the
things‘ ―cultural biographies‖ (Kopytoff, 1986), further singularizing them and
distinguishing them from mere commodities. This singularizing aspect of bargaining at
the flea market is something more formal retail spaces which work on price-fixing
mechanisms, cannot contribute to the experience of consumption.
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6.2.2 Negative Bargaining Experiences
There is a line along the spectrum of bargaining experiences, however, that once
crossed, threatens to venture into the realm of aggression and anti-social behaviour. Not
all bargaining experiences are pleasant and pleasurable social interactions. To assume so
will be to romanticize, simplify and glaze over unwilling and involuntary instances of
bargaining encounters. Khuri (1968) notes that both ―socially conflictful‖ and ―socially
cooperative‖ forms of bargaining exist simultaneously in marketplaces. Negative
encounters of bargaining profile bargainers as ―greedy, obnoxious, rude, (and) insulting‖,
and are deemed to have, in their interactions, crossed the line and ventured into a realm of
insulting the seller (vendor)‖ (Herrmann, 2003: 242). Although such outwardly negative
experiences of bargaining were few and far between both in my observations at the flea
market and in the interviewees‘ accounts of bargaining, unpleasant encounters of price
negotiation were nevertheless impassionedly recounted in interviews, especially among
vendors at the flea market.
‘Hard’ bargaining: Aggression, mistrust and tensions in value
More often than not, these negative encounters are described as prolonged and
protracted ones that not only make the vendors feel uncomfortable, but also greatly upset
them. Judgements on the valuation of goods are once again the premise on which
negative experiences of bargaining take place, and involve vendors becoming offended
and insulted when shoppers insist on a price that they feel outwardly and explicitly
devalues their goods. Beth‘s detailed account of her distressing encounter with a
bargainer illustrates this disagreement over perceived value:
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So . . . $20 . . . (was) my cost price and I am actually selling that item (an
imported dress) for $35.90. But I gave her (a middle-aged female
customer) a discount and it was $29.90 and she refused to pay $29.90. She
wanted the item at $20. I told her, ―No, I cannot do (sell) it at like $20. If
you want (a discount, I will sell it for) $29.90. Take it or leave it.‖ Then
she was like ―No . . . $20! $29.90 too expensive.‖. Then I told her, ―Then
it‘s ok. Maybe you can get this somewhere else or something. I don‘t
know, but there‘s no way I‘m going to let this go at $20.‖. . . I supposed
she liked that dress a lot. . . She was very stubborn. . . (I was) willing to
settle at $25. That is if she was willing to pay more. But she just insisted.
She said ―No, no, no. You try to cheat aunty money!‖ or something like
that. Then I was very pissed off. I told her, ―It‘s ok. I do not want to have
any transactions with you, just in case you are going to accuse me of
cheating you or something. I do not want to be accused of that.‖ She was
like, ―You don‘t talk so much. I‘m going to buy this at $20. That‘s it,
that‘s it!‖ Then she took out two $10 notes, she put it on my table and she
took my thing (the dress) and she walked away. So I was shocked. I was
stunned for a moment. Then my friend was like, ―Are you going to chase
(go after) her or are you going to accept the $20 offer?‖ So I took the $20
and I went to her (and said), ―I‘m very sorry but I cannot do this at $20.‖
Then she was like, ―Aiya, $20 then $20 la. (sic) Why you so ngiao
(calculative)?‖. (By this time) . . . There were a lot of people, all the
shoppers walking around and we were like in (at) the middle (center) of
attention . . . Everybody must (have been) thinking, ‗What‘s wrong with
this girl? Why is she taking the money and snatching the clothes back
from the aunty?‘. Then she was like (in Mandarin), ―Will you die if you
sold aunty at a little less? Why are you so stingy and so calculative?‖.
Then I feel (felt) very embarrassed, then I told her, ―Ok, let‘s do this. $28
is the lowest I can go.‖ . . . I was prepared for her to bargain to $25 or
something. She was like ―No, no, no. $22! Take it or leave it.‖ . . . Then
my friend came. My friend told her (sternly in Mandarin), ―Aunty, $28 is
the lowest we can go. If you want it, give us $8 more. If you do not want
to pay $8 more, please return our dress and we will return you your $20.‖
Then . . . (she went) around telling people, ―Don‘t go to that booth to buy
things. She‘s very mean, she‘s trying to cheat (you of) your money. . . The
price you are paying is not worth the value of her things.‖. . .That‘s the
worst encounter I‘ve ever had.
Beth‘s encounter clearly differed from the aforementioned positive ones, and is an
extreme example of ‗crossing the line‘ in bargaining to become unarguably antisocial,
transgressing bargaining etiquette in several ways. Firstly, unlike the cordial and careful
approaches that constitute positive bargaining experiences at the flea market, the ‗aunty‘
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was decidedly insistent on paying only $20 for the dress, disregarding any of Beth‘s
attempts to negotiate, to the extent that she created a scene by aggressively snatching it
away from the stall after throwing Beth the money. The interaction that ensued was hence
protracted, which clearly exasperated and embarrassed Beth in front of other flea market
participants. Positive bargaining encounters as shown above, on the other hand, have
been observed to be and described as brief. Secondly, by offering $20 for the dress the
‗aunty‘ was deemed to have pitched too far below from the initial selling price of $35.90.
The discrepancy between the valuations of the good in question was seen as too large to
be reconciled, and this was exacerbated by the shopper‘s insistence on her offered price
of $20. When the shopper‘s asking price is seen to differ too much from the vendor‘s, a
conflict in their ―regimes of value‖ (Appadurai, 1986: 3) is signaled, and the ―contested
valuation of items‖ (Herrmann, 2003: 243) becomes breeding ground for conflict and
aggression as the vendor may be insulted by the shopper‘s perception of the worth of
their goods. Thirdly, unlike Beth‘s other pleasant bargaining encounter which ended with
the female customer offering to promote the clothes she sold to her peers, this ‗aunty‘,
with her ‗hard‘ bargaining that displayed beahviour that was ―aggressive, unfriendly and
non-jovial‖ (Balogun, 1991: 32 from Herrmann, 2003: 241), did not seem to have any
intention of establishing a long-term trading relationship. Shoppers, like the aunty who
openly accused Beth of ‗cheating‘ her, explicitly doubt the reasonableness of the prices
offered by the vendors. This questioning of the vendors‘ honesty breeds a climate of
mistrust by insulting the sellers‘ integrity and is detrimental to the sociability and
atmosphere of the flea market. There are unspoken, normative understandings of the
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thresholds of bargaining that ‗good‘ participants held by ‗good‘ participants of the flea
market, and these are only brought to fore when they are not adhered to.
Bargaining ‘aunties’: A breach of perceived authenticity?
Significantly, many of the negative encounters cited by vendors, such as Beth,
and shoppers associated negative experiences of bargaining, with a particular
demographic of shoppers—‗aunties‘. These ‗aunties‘ are considered to be exceptions to
the usual clientele of young shoppers at the flea market. The ‗aunty‘ is a caricature of a
middle-aged woman who is shrewd with bargaining. Aunties are thought to be adept at
bargaining and drive a hard bargain with their insistence because they are ‗stingy‘ and
calculative, and like other aggressive bargainers in described in the literature, are always
looking to ‗get something for nothing‘ (Herrmann, 2003). Behavior that transgresses
bargaining etiquette was thus often described as characteristically ‗aunty‘ behavior.
‗Aunty‘ bargaining behavior is considered rude and offensive and in cases like Beth‘s,
highly aggressive as well. The ‗aunty‘ has been brought up several times in the
interviews when the subject of negative encounters in bargaining was brought up, as Beth
elaborates:
So I thought (after her aforementioned bad experience with bargaining),
―Avoid aunties!‖ . . . (laughs) That‘s what I thought.
Ingrid also recalls her experience with an ‗aunty‘ shopper:
I sold a pair of jeans, it was $5, it was (from the denim wear brand) Levi‘s.
This aunty was like ‗but then oh‖ (asking for a lower price). I‘m like ―Oh
my god, shut the f**k up. If you don‘t want to buy, just f**k off‖. (sic)
She came back (to the stall) like 5 times. It‘s $5! I‘m like ―No man, this is
$5, are you crazy?‖. The original was probably $100 or $120 or something.
Nuts. Some people are like ‗this is $3, $2 can?‖ (sic) Especially when it‘s
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(the price) is low… if it‘s $10 or $15 I don‘t mind but if it‘s like $3…
joking! You‘re obviously cheapskate! You go find another stall that sells
(the item at) the same price as me.
In both Beth and Ingrid‘s negative encounters, both were with who they claimed
to be ‗aunties‘ who drove a hard bargain. In both encounters, bargaining was a protracted
interaction with the ‗aunties‘ and disagreement over the value of the items were not
resolved. Ingrid also angrily described the bargainer as ―cheapskate‖, and breaching
bargaining etiquette by trying to get a discount for something she thought was already, at
$5, priced very low. She found the ‗aunty‘ tasteless to have asked for a discount for
something priced at $5, and claims she would not have minded some bargaining if prices
were higher, at ―$10 or $15‖ instead. Moreover, Ingrid‘s valuation of the pair of jeans she
was selling drew from her first cycle of consumption, as she took into consideration the
fact that she had paid ―$100 or $120‖ for it in the first place. The ‗aunty‘s‘ valuation of
the pair of jeans was clearly below Ingrid‘s and asking for a discount insulted its
perceived worth. This highly gendered profile of the hard bargainer, interestingly, differs
completely from Herrmann‘s (2004) findings in American garage sales, where aggressive
bargaining is almost always associated with men, who were also thought to bargain more
frequently than women did.
Bargaining that is associated with ‗aunties‘ is also considered a form of ‗pennypinching‘, and hence, thought to be extremely miserly behavior. This impression is
exacerbated by the prevalence of second-hand goods at the flea market, most of which
are thought to be already sold at extremely low prices. Becky describes how the sale of
second-hand clothes at the flea market attracts a certain clientele:
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I have nothing against second-hand products. But the people you are
attracting with second-hand flea market products, or if you allow your
stalls to sell second hand (goods) . . . usually (attract) people who bargain
a lot, people who are there for cheap finds. . . You can see that the crowd
that goes there really flips your clothes, mess up your desk . . . for $2 they
will ask for a dollar. . . I have nothing against that but that is just the kind
of crowd that you want to attract.
Although Becky claims to have ―nothing against second-hand products‖ on sale at the
flea market, she notes that they attract people who bargain ―a lot‖, even when prices are
as low as $2. Bargaining has sometimes been associated with the lack of social status and
―bargaining, like penny-pinching, does not go well with prestige‖ (Khuri, 1968: 700). For
men of honor and prestige in the Middle East, for example, ―the ability to pay appears
honorific‖ and they do not engage in bargaining even when they realize that the goods
they have bought have been overpriced (ibid). In a similar vein, ‗aunties‘ who are deemed
to ‗penny-pinch‘ in their bargains at the flea market are deemed to be tasteless in their
attempts in price negotiation. More significantly, however, such ‗hard‘ bargaining
attempts, whether by ‗aunties‘ or otherwise, bring forth the commodity dimension of the
item as its monetary value is explicitly discussed and evaluated, unlike the ‗pricelessness‘
of art, where its singularity ensures that any bargaining or explicit advertisements of price,
is taboo. This may be a potential threat to the founding principle of ‗artistic integrity‘ of
the flea market, and does little to contribute to the perceived authenticity. This may be a
reason why the figure of the ‗aunty‘ or any negative bargaining encounters associated
with them, are seen to be especially disdainful and distasteful.
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6.3 Conclusion
As a price-setting mechanism, bargaining contributes an interesting experiential
dimension to consumption. As has been discussed, bargaining spans the spectrum from
positive to negative social interaction, and is far from irrational, nor exotic and premodern. Positive bargaining encounters, or soft bargaining approaches, are cordial and
cautious, and do not overstep boundaries which may question the vendors‘ judgment of
value. Bargaining can be a flexible price-setting mechanism that allows shoppers and
vendors to construct meaningful encounters that add value to the goods sold and
purchased. On the other hand, negative bargaining encounters—hard bargaining
approaches—constitute extreme breaches in bargaining etiquette and includes behavior
that is deemed aggressive and insulting to the vendors‘ judgment of value. Both types of
bargaining encounters are statements in the perceived value of goods, and when positive,
may serve to further singularize them by creating an irreplaceable aspect of the thing‘s
cultural biography. Such price negotiating encounters are absent from more formal sites
of retail such as the shopping mall, and serve to differentiate flea markets and similar
retail set-ups from conventional ones. The social relations that are established during
bargaining encounters, however momentary and fleeting, contribute to an almost esoteric
dimension of consumption and consumerism that can only be uncovered experientially in
retail spaces such as The Flea. It is thus the transactions and the way goods are
exchanged that characterize the flea market as a distinctive type of retail environment,
rendering the symbolic aspect of consumption ever more significant.
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Chapter 7: Concluding Remarks
7.1: Summary
This study, an ethnography of The Flea—an urban flea market in Singapore—has
generated primary data that has aimed to provide a detailed, contextual account of
consumption in a less-than-commonly studied retail site. The onslaught of consumerism
in Singapore has brought forth with it a whole host of consumption sites and practices.
Many of these are situated in formal retail spaces like the shopping mall and have been
well-documented in anthropological, as well as consumer and consumption studies.
Scant academic attention has been paid, however, to less formal retail spaces like
flea markets in Singapore, and this paper has attempted to address this gap in knowledge
in as holistic a manner as possible—through participant-observation at the said field site
of the flea market; semi-structured and informal interviews with both vendors and
shoppers; as well as the consideration of the virtual sites of interaction and knowledge
dissemination, like the flea market‘s website (Chapter 2). To better contextualize the data
collected, a brief overview of the retail environment in Singapore, along with how the
flea market is situated within it, has been provided in Chapter 3. Although the analyses of
the findings have been segmented according to the social actors involved—the vendors
(Chapter 4) and the shoppers (Chapter 5); and then by the interaction that takes place
between the two groups (Chapter 6), this thesis has also sought to look at some of the
theoretical issues raised through exploring the ‗life cycles‘ and ‗stories‘ that the things
sold and bought, sometimes tell.
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The vendors‘ preference for selling at the flea market in this study—The Flea—
suggests the contemporary relevance of less formal retail set-ups in today‘s society,
debunking myths that informal retail spaces such as markets remain vestiges of the premodern past, or mere nuisances to city-planning authorities. This is despite the
proliferation and continual growth of shopping malls in Singapore. Both formal and
informal modes of retail can thus exist alongside one another. However, vendors use the
flea market as a platform from which to promote or supplement their businesses, many of
them online-based, and use marketing strategies found in formal businesses, such as
product differentiation, in their sales. This not only blurs the boundaries between the
formal and informal sector and questions rigid definitions of the categories themselves,
but also demonstrates a close dependency between the two economic circuits.
While the quality of the goods sold in many informal retail spaces like bazaars
have been described as being questionable at best, garment vendors at the flea market
who operate web-based businesses constantly differentiate between themselves according
to the type of clothes they sell. Blog shop vendors, with their ‗mass-produced‘, relatively
low-priced clothing and overt advertising are deemed by non-blog-shop vendors to carry
products that have characteristics that place them almost unapologetically in the sphere of
the commodity. These mass-produced clothing are perceived as being of inferior quality
to those sold by other non-blog-shop vendors, who imbue their goods with singularizing
characteristics such as being ‗hand-made‘ and hence ‗one-of-a-kind‘. The disdain for
blog-shop vendors is matched by the organizers romanticized conception of their flea
market and the lowly-priced clothes sold by these vendors are seen as antithetical to the
market‘s founding principles of non-profit-making and artistic integrity. The ‗cheap‘
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clothing sold by blog-shop vendors are alleged by both organizers and non-blog-shop
vendors to be threats to the perceived authenticity of the flea market with their overt
commodity status, as opposed to the singular status of other goods. Used goods sold by
second-hand merchandise marketers demonstrate the singularizing process especially
well, balancing between their re-birth as commodities and the vendors‘ efforts to
singularize them by for example, sharing stories of how they were first acquired. Such
stories allow both vendors and shoppers to develop emotional attachment to the goods,
thus adding value to them by highlighting the uncommodifiable personal sentiments of
love and care. The ease with which participants at the flea market are encouraged to
interact makes the transmission of these background stories of second-hand goods even
more prevalent.
This quest for (perceived) authenticity is not lost on shoppers at the flea market,
who in their acts of browsing and rummaging, both simultaneously feed on and
contribute to the ‗sociability myth‘ (Maisel, 1974) of the marketplace. Browsing and
looking, even without any intension of eventually purchasing anything, is highly
acceptable behaviour at the flea market, and is seen more as a recreational activity shared
by peers, rather than one that is overtly commercial in its intent. The act of rummaging
and searching is also closely associated, encouraged and even expected of shoppers at the
flea market. The relatively haphazard layout of the flea market goods by vendors arouse
none of the self-consciousness that those in more formal retail spaces do. This results in
and contributes to a (perceived) camaraderie among flea market shoppers and vendors, as
well as the atmosphere of the market in general. However, while the relatively low-prices
at the flea market mean that shoppers with limited financial resources and budgets may
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get obtain similar goods at a fraction of the retail price, hence producing a sense of
egalitarianism and inclusiveness amongst consumers, the discretionary nature and
symbolic value produced by rummaging and searching for desirable goods distinguishes
those with cultural capital and taste from those who do not. This hidden snobbery is
especially evident in ideas surrounding ‗vintage‘ clothing, which also, yet again, play into
and draw from a discourse of authenticity that surrounds the market. Vintage clothing
requires its consumers to develop a connoisseurship obtained through possessing
sufficient cultural capital that plays a crucial role in discernment while rummaging. This
is especially pronounced when shopping at a flea market abundant with used clothing that
may be potentially deemed to be unstylish or unfashionable—the consumption of which
connotes bad taste. This connoisseurship is further required to ensure that vintage
clothing is consumed ‗correctly‘—that is, to display one‘s sartorial style through just the
‗right‘ mix of old and new items in an outfit and hence signaling one‘s ‗in-the-know‘ of
the global fashion scene.
Consuming vintage clothing also epitomizes the shoppers‘ quest for authenticity
at the flea market. The anti-mass-production message vehemently articulated by the
vendors and organizers is once again expressed by the shoppers who revel in the
exclusiveness of vintage clothing, rendering vintage clothing with qualities of singularity
rather than highlighting its commodity status. This is further enhanced by the peripheral,
ephemeral and ‗hidden‘ nature of the flea market as a retail space, as it adds credence to
the exclusivity and symbolic value of the vintage clothing purchased there. This symbolic
value is further enhanced when cultural biographies of the vintage clothing are told by
vendors or imagined by consumers. The personal dimension and sentiments invoked by
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such biographical accounts of vintage clothing create emotional attachment to the goods
amongst consumers. This is then used by organizers and vendors to validate the said
authenticity, causing consumers to partake in the value (co-)creation of both the flea
market and the goods sold there.
Another significant dimension of the cultural biography of the goods sold and
bought at the flea market is the way transactions are carried out between vendor and
shopper. As a distinct price-setting mechanism, price negotiation, like bargaining, is an
interesting practice through which to view social interaction and economic transactions at
the flea market. As a practice often deemed as pre-modern and irrational, its continued
existence in the flea market in the ‗developed‘ economy of contemporary Singapore
suggests otherwise. These bargaining encounters, like many documented in the literature,
span from positive encounters to negative ones. Negative encounters are seen to ‗cross
the line‘ on this spectrum and a breach of bargaining etiquette that requires shoppers to
propose offers gently and cordially, keeping interactions brief, rather than abruptly and
protractedly like negative ones often do. Many a times, whether or not these encounters
turn out to be pleasant and sociable or aggressive and anti-social also hinges upon the
respective parties‘ valuation of goods at the center of the proposed transaction.
Appadurai‘s (1986) paradox of value, as discussed in Chapter 4, notes that things that are
more singular command higher value than things which are deemed explicitly as
commodities. Thus, an offer that is deemed too low in price translates into the shopper‘s
low valuation of the good and a disregard of the good‘s singular properties. Vendors in
such situations may feel insulted and upset by such devaluations of their goods by
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shoppers, and the refusal to give in to the shoppers‘ offers signals a gap between
judgments of value.
Additionally, bargaining may be perceived as distasteful when shoppers try to
bargain for items which are thought to be already fairly lowly priced. These shoppers are
accused of being ‗penny-pinchers‘ and this behavior is usually associated with a specific
shopper profile—‗aunties‘. Such behavior that is associated with ‗aunties‘ is also thought
to mar the perceived ‗authenticity‘ of the flea market, as it brings to fore the commodity
aspect of the flea market goods, downplaying the singular, and hence, potentially
compromising on the ‗artistic integrity‘ espoused by its organizer‘s founding principles.
Rather than having one particular identity, things may carry multiple layers of identity at
the same time, to people with different motivations. Being in the commodity phase, for
example, is not an absolute state of being for the thing, but rather, a subjective valuation.
Bargaining brings out these different subjective valuations, the lack of reconcilement of
which produces tensions in the marketplace.
7.2: Points for Discussion
This thesis has thus sought to better understand a facet of Singapore‘s retail
landscape, consumption culture and exchange practices in a less common, less formal and
less permanent set-up than is usually found in the literature or popular discourse. The flea
market studied in this paper is but one of the many types of less formal retail spaces and
set-ups found in Singapore, and any attempt to generalize from the findings of this
research must take into consideration the particularity of the field site, as well as the
broader situational and historical context within which it is found. Nevertheless, several
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points of significance that are gleaned from this study have wider implications and
contributions to existing literature. Firstly, the context of exchange, in this case, the type
of retail set-up and environment, influences the symbolic value of things, aiding in the
meaning-making process and the development of emotional attachment to these things,
rendering them to be regarded as less commodifiable, more singular, and hence according
to the paradox of value (Appadurai, 1986), higher in economic value as well. Therefore,
some less formal retail set-ups and environments, with their perceived ease of interaction
amongst participants, may possess greater potential than more formal ones like shopping
malls to enhance the value of their goods by tapping on the invoking of personal
sentiments amongst consumers. The most prevalent form of retail environment, in this
case, the shopping mall in Singapore, is not the sole beholder of the symbolic clout of
consumption amongst consumers.
Hence, secondly, there remains, in this vast landscape of shopping malls, a
purpose and a need for alternative, informal forms of retail in Singapore. Informal retail
spaces are not limited to those of the ‗pre-modern‘ past and although many have
historically sprung out of economic necessity, catering to segments of society with
limited resources, the informal retail spaces of today thrive in spite of growing affluence
in ‗developed‘ economies that have sought to diminish the very existence of such
business set-ups and now rely heavily on organized and ‗rational‘ business practices.
These spaces address gaps in the larger retail landscape to provide opportunities for
owners of start-up businesses or owners of online businesses with limited start-up capital,
allowing them to establish otherwise absent face-to-face interaction and intimacy with
consumers that potentially alter the course of exchange relations between them.
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Romanticized and nostalgic notions of informal retail spaces also allow contemporary,
affluent consumers to construct alternative identities and practices in response to
modernity, capitalism, mass-production and consumerism—identities and practices that
they perceive as antithetical as well as solutions to the symptoms of the societies they live
in. ‗Informal‘, alternative retail spaces—set-ups that differ from the usual brick-andmortar shopping malls, boutiques, retail outlets and stores—are hence just as relevant to
present conditions as its predecessors were. They thrive not just in spite of, but also
because of the rationalization of retail spaces and exchange practices in today‘s world,
offering opportunities for both business owners and consumers to attempt to humanize
exchange relations and practices.
Last but not the least, this study has generated primary data and has, as such,
attempted in its analyses, to address the gap in current research and scholarship that deal
with consumption and the status of informal retail spaces and the practices that take place
within them. Alternative retail spaces in urban settings have been sorely marginalized in
the literature thus far and this study has taken a holistic approach that addresses this
imbalance. It is the hope of this study that current strands of literature can look beyond
the usual sites of retail to explore consumption and commodification in less common and
more obscure spaces within societies popularly deemed to be ‗urban‘, ‗modern‘, and
‗economically developed‘; and where related practices and processes may take on
different forms, and the social actors involved display ingenuity and creativity that
continue to make these retail set-ups thrive despite their existence alongside more
dominant ones.
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Appendix A
List of Informants
Vendors
1. Daisy
Daisy is in her early 20s and owns an online business outside of her full-time job as an
executive. Her online ‗shop‘ sells vintage clothing and accessories. To promote her
online business, she participates in flea markets where she sells her goods and gives out
name cards bearing her shop‘s website to promote her business.
2. Michelle
Michelle is a blog-shop owner in her mid-twenties. She started her blog-shop about a
year ago, selling ladies‘ clothes, bags and shoes she buys from Bangkok and China, for a
profit. She uses the flea market as a means to promote her blog-shop, taking part about
four to five times a year.
3. Becky
Becky is a mid-level executive in her mid-twenties and sells handmade costume jewelry
at the flea market. She uses the flea market as a platform to get some money out of what
she does by selling her handicrafts. She participates in flea markets, including The Flea,
as a vendor about once every two months.
4. Ingrid
Ingrid is a fashion designer in her early thirties who uses the flea market to sell her used
personal possessions, mostly items of clothing and some books, at prices as low as three
dollars. She sells at The Flea, infrequently, whenever she feels she has unwanted
possessions she wants to sell.
5. Lily
Lily is a self-identified blog shop owner who has been selling clothes at the flea market for the
past year. She participates in flea markets, including The Flea almost every weekend, spending
most of her leisure time during weekends, outside of her full-time job as an administrative
assistant at a local company, selling at flea markets.
6. Sally
Sally, in her mid-20s, holds a full-time job at an events-planning company and is a second-hand
marketer who sells clothes that she no longer wears at the flea market. She participates with a
frequency of about once every six months.
7. Beth
126
Beth is in her mid-twenties and sells women‘s apparel at the flea market. She also has an online
blog-shop selling the same things she does at the flea market. She participates at flea markets,
including The Flea, about twice a month, and hopes to one day turn own a shop selling women‘s
apparel.
Shoppers
1. Marie
Marie is a 19-year old college student who gets a monthly allowance from her parents and some
income from a part-time job as a private tutor. She claims to look-out for value-for-money items
at flea markets and supplements her purchases at shopping malls with those at the flea market.
2. Elaine
Elaine is a twenty-eight year old working at a consulting firm and attends flea markets
irregularly at a frequency of about a few times a year. She found out about The Flea through her
friends.
3. Carolyn
Carolyn, in her mid-twenties, attends flea markets about once a month as a shopper, and claims
to enjoy flea markets as she can rummage through the things on sale and bargain with vendors.
4. Constance
Constance is a thirty year old executive who shops occasionally at the flea market. She claims to
enjoy brand-name apparel and supplements her purchase of these at luxury boutiques with
discounted ones she sometimes finds at flea markets.
5. Jennifer
Jennifer claims to be an aficionado of vintage clothing and the flea market is just one of the
many places she goes to purchase these.
6. Vicky
Vicky is a college student in her early twenties who claims to enjoy vintage clothing. She shops
at the flea market for these, among other things such as brand new clothes and enjoys attending
flea markets with her friends.
7. Sharon
Sharon is a marketing executive in her 20s who has been purchasing vintage clothing from the
flea market and various other second-hand shops. She claims to attend The Flea‘s sessions as and
when it coincides with her free time.
8. Crystal
127
Crystal is a twenty-five year old teacher at a local primary school and shops at flea markets
regularly to buy used items of clothing, as well as search for ‗vintage‘ ones.
9. Sarah
Sarah is a twenty-four year old public relations executive at a multi-national firm. She claims to
enjoy flea market shopping and attends flea markets on weekends whenever she is informed of
one either by her friends or through social networking sites. She has been attending flea markets
both in Singapore and also those in countries she has holidayed in, for the past two years.
128
Appendix B
(Source: personal correspondence with vendor of vintage clothing)
129
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[...]... societies20 have also in recent years, adopted the term to describe markets in their locales The Sungei Road Thieves‘ Market in Singapore, for example, has been described as Singapore s oldest flea market Many different flea markets have also been widely-publicized by the media in Singapore, and these range from markets selling handicrafts by up -and- coming local artists and designers21, to fashion-related... misconception and call any form of gathering a flea market In naming itself a flea market , the founders of The Flea had certain pre-conceived notions of what the term entails and what role they want their market to play within the local retail context To Jess, structural similarities between the bazaar and the flea market gave way to functional differences in motivation Though the bazaar is ephemeral and make-shift... Retail in Singapore i The night market, or pasar malam (‗pasar‘ meaning market and ‗malam‘ meaning night in the Malay language) is a form of retailing activity commonly found in many parts of Southeast Asia (Ibrahim and Leng, 2003: 178) The first night markets in Singapore were apparently started in 1953 by a group of hawkers that followed the performing schedules of street opera troupes, selling... promotes these flea market events through online blogs and websites Examples of these organizers include Flea- tique!‘, Flea Titan‘ and ‗The Flea As these flea markets seem to target and attract youth, it is forming a small but vibrant part of youth and popular culture in Singapore Other types of informal retail spaces that have surfaced in the literature include street fairs, farmers‘ markets (Petrocci,... surrounding flea markets in Singapore 2.3 A Brief Introduction of the Field Site: Setting, Objects and Social Actors 18 The Flea was started in mid-2006 by a fashion designer and a sound engineer, both of whom describe themselves as having a strong interest and involvement in the ‗arts‘ scene in Singapore (The Flea, 2011; personal correspondence) They describe and promote The Flea as an ―independent flea market ... of roads and/ or at the void decks under Singapore s many public housing apartment blocks, and are often thought of as features of residential heartlands As the name suggests, the pasar malam operates in the evening and late into the night These markets are characterized by the mobile nature of their stalls and usually last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks in a particular estate before moving... contextual phenomena that cannot be rigidly defined 3.2: The Alternative Retail Scene in Singapore Adopting both Cross and Morales‘ and Sherry‘s conceptual fluidity in describing ‗informality‘, I will now turn to Singapore s retail and trade context Several types of such alternative, informal retail spaces may be found in Singapore These include, but are not exhaustive of ‗local‘ night markets (pasar malam),... districts and residential ‗heartlands‘, and significantly meet, as well as shape, the consumption culture in Singapore Shopping malls, however, make up just one, albeit important part of the complex, multi-layered retail scene in Singapore There also exists a seemingly small and less conspicuous but no less vibrant, interesting and exciting ‗informal‘ retail scene in Singapore 3.1: The ‘Formal’ and the ‘Informal’—Dichotomy... well-established and well-known flea market amongst consumers It was named one of Singapore ―best‖ five flea markets by a popular online news portal (CNNGo, 2011) To gain a more holistic perspective into the social interaction that takes place at this flea market, I participated both as a vendor and a shopper on separate occasions This was to provide me with a vendor‘s perspective of the market and an opportunity... conducted in isolation from other goings-on in the city, making the contextualization and linkages ever more important Weighing both the advantages and limitations of Belk et al‘s naturalistic inquiry, as well as taking into consideration the richness of data gathered by both Sherry and Maisel‘s ethnographic approach to the study of their field settings, this study of a flea market in Singapore, as shall ... spaces 3.2.1: Typology of Alternative Retail in Singapore i The night market, or pasar malam (‗pasar‘ meaning market and ‗malam‘ meaning night in the Malay language) is a form of retailing activity... downturn in New Zealand saw people turning to selling at flea markets as a financial coping strategy Similarly, Fanselow (1990) notes how adaptive ‗sellers‘ in the Kalakkadu bazaar are, as they... and shoppers manage their interactions in the marketplace when bargaining a distinctive price-setting practice at the flea market takes place, as well as how judgments of value come into play
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