Consumer activism has an enduring appeal. The concept combines ideas of collectivism linked to the perceived universality of the act of shopping with the potential to make a social, economic or political difference through individual actions. It inspires a sense of people power that can function within the status quo, so its attraction can work across political boundaries. It can shapeshift to fit a range of situations and reformist agendas, targeting issues from labour conditions to environmentalism, from animal welfare to public health, and any intersections between them. It can be made to apply to different socio-economic groups, from the ethical consumerism that calls on shoppers to pay more for ethically produced goods to structures of cooperative buying. It can work at levels from the hyperlocal to the global, from neighbourhood shop to stock market. It serves many aims to many activists, from increasing community influence to appeasing individual guilt. It can even change its own identity to fit these models, not least because, as sociologist Jeffrey Haydu remarks, ‘it demands less time and carries less risk than does collective public protest’. The notion of ethical shopping allows some proponents to avoid the label of activism altogether, while it enables others to embrace an activist identity based on their consumer choices.

Historicising consumer activism

Much of this book was written during the coronavirus pandemic that grew to global proportions in 2020. The first months of the emergency pandemic response raised their own unique calls to consumer activism while also bringing to the fore many of the socio-economic problems that have inspired consumer activism since the eighteenth century. Mutual aid groups organised the neighbourly action of shopping on behalf of local vulnerable people. Meanwhile, attention was drawn to conditions in service industries, particularly delivery services, on which individuals suddenly became more reliant than ever – including those who had previously used them as a convenience or luxury, as well as those who had always depended on them because of disabilities, for instance. The already long-standing call to boycott specific online retailers and large-scale delivery services was renewed as news emerged that workers in this industry might lack such protections as sick pay and, as a result, were prevented from self-isolating if they were infected or vulnerable to the virus.