ABSTRACT
We are all consumers, and the UK of the twenty-first century is as much governed by retail credit and its availability (or lack of) as by anything else. It is now difficult to imagine not having those consumer goods we want now but could only previously have in one, two or three years time when we had saved up enough money to buy them. All major high street retailers offer credit terms, loyalty and incentive schemes, not only to tempt us into their shops, but also to give them the ability, through data collection, to monitor our purchase behaviour. Walking up and down the high street, or wandering around the vast cathedral-like out of town shopping centres, it is apparent that as far as brand, functionality and price are concerned, there is little to differentiate one store from another. The real sell comes in the credit terms on offer, the interest-free credit, the availability ‘subject to status’ of every possible means of being able to order whatever it is that we have our eyes on.
