Territory: Four businesses operating in the UK retail sector of industry and their company websites. Areas of Investigation: • Company values and the role and functions of these in business. • The ‘relationship’ between business and its customers and how this is changing as a result of the internet. • Marketing and advertisement techniques and the possible effects they might have on consumers. • Crisis of legitimation and the poststructuralist interpretations of western society. Philosophical Thinkers Involved: Nietzsche’s ‘Will to Power’ exposes fundamental issues with values in retail business practises. As a result conceptions of power are considered in the forms expressed by Foucault and Thomas to see how this affects the position of the consumer. Baudrillard’s ideas of simulacra and simulation were then used to highlight possible reasons for company values in relation to how we perceive the real. Further exposition of the consumer relation to business was carried out through the work of Jean François Lyotard and Gianni Vattimo. Conclusions: Businesses values are not legitimate but instead the result of our interactions as consumers; our purchases can actually shape society making our relationship with business an active one instead of passive. The overall conception of business as a physical entity is misleading as it has no fixed point; businesses are sociological phenomenon that reflects the general will of society because they are governed by the pragmatics of economics and are fundamentally made from members of that society.