Participation in alternative retail channels: a choice or necessity?

The view that alternative retail channels (i.e. informal and/or second‐hand modes of goods acquisition) are used out of economic necessity by disadvantaged consumers has been recently opposed by cultural theorists who instead read such channels in agency‐oriented terms as places of fun, sociality, distinction, discernment, the spectacular and so forth. To evaluate these contrasting perspectives, this paper reports data from 350 interviews conducted in rural England. Finding that the agency‐oriented view of alternative retail channels is valid amongst higher‐income populations but economic necessity remains the principal motive amongst lower‐income populations, this paper concludes that, for a fuller understanding to be achieved, the dualistic “either/or” debates between those promulgating economic necessity and those emphasising choice need to be replaced by a “both/and” approach sensitive to the variations in the meanings of such channels.