WEEK 6 SOCIAL CLASS

For this assignment I chose the retail shopping center mall that I am usually at four days out of the week because of my job. Valley Fair is a Westfield owned shopping center located right on the border between Santa Clara and San Jose and is known to have high volume retail stores such as Nordstroms, Macys, Tiffany's, and Louis Vuitton. Valley Fair has a wide arrange of stores that offer an even more wider arrange of prices.

The store I work at is Bath & Body Works and is relatively always providing in store promotions that offer low price ranges for customers. In contrast to my store there is Nordstrom's, a higher end department store that carries high designer brands such as Christian Loubuiton, whose shoes for example are often priced around $800. Yes $200 dollars short of a grand for a pair of heels. The clientele that come into my store are usually lower middle class and demographically Asian, Pacific Islander, and South East Asian. Our store usually has large bright marketing and many promotions that that consist of numerical statements such as 3 for $10 to target mainly "bargain hunters" and those who like to buy surplus. Our music contains no profanity and are usually covers of classic songs from the 80's and 70's which indicate our target towards middle aged woman as well. In contrast Nordstrom's department on the first floor has an actual pianist in front of a grand piano playing classical pieces targeting those of more wealth perhaps, while clothing stores such as Metro Park that target younger and "hipper" audiences provide an actual DJ and turntables in the stores to give a modern club vibe.

In Bath & Body Works a middle aged woman around her early thirties caught my eye as the usual BBW shopper. She is Vietnamese and walks around with an empty Westfield rented stroller, ignorant of her two children running a muck around the store. She is dressed in simple clothing with a simple handbag and her only jewelry is her wedding band. As I rang her up for thirty items of soap, lotion, and candles, she asked if she could do three separate transactions for the three coupons she brought along. This is usually the normal behavior of our customers, they pertain to be lower middle class, and try go get as much bargains as possible out of their purchase, saving as much money as they can. Another customer walks in to the store carrying designer printed purse large enough to carry her puppy, designer sunglasses on her face in doors and walking around 5 inch heels. She is Caucasian and chooses only a few of our higher prices spa items that usually never go on sale. I can discern she of upper middle class, because of her interest in the spa items and the way she was dressed. Her interest in carrying her puppy around was also a social class index that alongside treating her self well, she also had the money to treat her domestic pet well. The third person I chose to observe were the usual teenage "boppers" that come into the store. A Hispanic girl around the age of fifteen came in still wearing her backpack, and probably took the bus to the mall straight from school. She pauses to examine a few items and try on lipgloss with her friends before eventually walking out without a purchase.
I assume she is of lower class by her public school uniform and harsh drawn makeup. Coming from a low income area public school myself I remembered the "ghetto" trends of rubber banding the pant legs and wearing bra strap headbands with excessive amounts of hair gel.

But all these social class status markers could also be misleading. The Vietnamese mother may have been filthy rich but still grew up with bargain ideals and enjoyed simple clothing. The Caucasian woman may have been of lower class but dressed herself with fake designer sunglasses and cheap heels to change her social status in appearance. And the young girl may have been of middle class but chose to follow the trends of her friends, and had no interest in spending money in the store. All social status markers in society I believe are always subjective.
In terms of Valley Fair, my experience at other shopping centers, and this day of observance I can conclude the demographic of customers here are more so predominately of higher middle class and lower class. It contains higher middle class because of the location around the high end Santana Row, and rich Santa Clara neighborhood as well as its high end stores such as Nordstroms and Tiffany's. For the lower middle class, Valley Fair is also surrounded by the poorer older areas around San Carlos street and bargain priced stores such as Bath & Body Works and Forever 21.