Macroeconomic Shock and Product Disposition in an Emerging Market

Emerging markets are often viewed as the source of greatest business expansion in coming years. Yet, their economies tend to be more volatile, and the associated economic crises are deeper and more prolonged than is the case in advanced economies. This study examines consumer disposition processes in Thailand at the time of that nation’s economic crisis. Disposition has not been studied either in an emerging market context or in the context of consumers faced with crises derived from macroeconomic forces. The study examines sellers’ motives and behavior at a retail institution that arose spontaneously out of the Thai economic crisis: the car boot sale (CBS). This institution and its variants are well known in the United States and United Kingdom but had not existed as acceptable upper-middle and upper-class retail formats in Thailand prior to the crisis. The study also examines the Thai CBS phenomenon in cultural terms.