When we think about rituals and symbols we really don’t realize that rituals as well as symbols are everywhere. Almost everything we do is a ritual and a lot of the things we see are symbols. When I was first handed this assignment I was really nervous about having to write several pages on ritual and symbol. You would never think there would be a lot of ritual and symbols at a retail store. I didn’t even think Claire’s had either one of those things. But when I actually went ahead and went to my research site I realized there are a lot of rituals and symbols.
The obvious symbols in Claire’s would be all the signs since it is a retail store. And when I say signs I mean like signs that list all promotions going on at that specific time. For example, there are signs that say “buy two get one earring free” hanging over all the earnings. There are also signs that hang over the hair wall that say, “buy one get one half price.” People wouldn’t usually look at these signs and realize they’re symbols but they are. These images just simply address the promotions happening in the store that day. But without them he would verbally have the tell the customers about them and then who knows if they’d be able to keep it all straight and it would just be a mess. So it is just easier that we have these signs hanging. Sometimes along with these written signs are images. Claire’s also produces huge signs with pictures of the products just to promote them. They’ll pair jewelry together in the images to hopefully get customers to buy all the pieces instead of just one of the items by itself. I think it is pretty clear that these signs are for the customers and also for the employees in a way to keep up with the changing in store promotions.
I would say I do connect with this symbol in a personal way. I only say that because I’m an employee at my research site, so I’m in charge of changing signs and organizing them in the back room. So in that sense I think I do connect with them. But from a customer stand point; I don’t think they would necessarily connect with the signs. They just read them and kind of keep shopping. I think the behavior of customers around the cite of the symbol is kind of like they just look at it or sometimes just look over it. Even though there is a sign right there people still don’t notice it. To them it doesn’t have any meaning it is just there to tell them about the promotions.
I would think these signs would be a ritual to the all the employees at Claire’s, with myself included. This is a ritual because every couple days or so the promotions change and