Selling Home

Abstract

This essay explores the emergence of new forms of retail in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Bombay, an era which saw the development of new shopping districts, department stores, showrooms, and retail culture in the city. In a city known for its market density and commercial vibrancy, elite retailers tried to reach out to consumers in new ways, enticing them in from the street with window displays, standardized product lines, and novel assemblages of goods, while also contacting consumers directly through catalogues, flyers, designs sent on request, and home deliveries. Focusing on major department stores like the Army and Navy Stores and Whiteaway Laidlaw, major nationalist concerns like the Bombay Swadeshi Store and Godrej and Boyce, as well as smaller showrooms featuring fewer ranges of goods, the essay argues that novel retail strategies efforts helped to shape not just how things were sold but what was desired in Bombay—noting in particular how efforts to sell domestic furnishings promoted new ideas about what the home should be.