diff --git a/scrapy/exporters.py b/scrapy/exporters.py
index 6f679480d..4138f6192 100644
--- a/scrapy/exporters.py
+++ b/scrapy/exporters.py
@@ -11,7 +11,10 @@ from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
 from xml.sax.saxutils import XMLGenerator
 
 from scrapy.utils.serialize import ScrapyJSONEncoder
+from scrapy.utils.python import to_bytes, to_unicode
 from scrapy.item import BaseItem
+import warnings
+
 
 __all__ = ['BaseItemExporter', 'PprintItemExporter', 'PickleItemExporter',
            'CsvItemExporter', 'XmlItemExporter', 'JsonLinesItemExporter',
@@ -83,7 +86,7 @@ class JsonLinesItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
 
     def export_item(self, item):
         itemdict = dict(self._get_serialized_fields(item))
-        self.file.write(self.encoder.encode(itemdict) + '\n')
+        self.file.write(to_bytes(self.encoder.encode(itemdict) + '\n'))
 
 
 class JsonItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
@@ -95,18 +98,18 @@ class JsonItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
         self.first_item = True
 
     def start_exporting(self):
-        self.file.write("[")
+        self.file.write(b"[")
 
     def finish_exporting(self):
-        self.file.write("]")
+        self.file.write(b"]")
 
     def export_item(self, item):
         if self.first_item:
             self.first_item = False
         else:
-            self.file.write(',\n')
+            self.file.write(b',\n')
         itemdict = dict(self._get_serialized_fields(item))
-        self.file.write(self.encoder.encode(itemdict))
+        self.file.write(to_bytes(self.encoder.encode(itemdict)))
 
 
 class XmlItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
@@ -136,8 +139,9 @@ class XmlItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
         if hasattr(serialized_value, 'items'):
             for subname, value in serialized_value.items():
                 self._export_xml_field(subname, value)
-        elif hasattr(serialized_value, '__iter__'):
-            for value in serialized_value:
+        elif (hasattr(serialized_value, '__iter__')
+              and not isinstance(serialized_value, six.string_types)):
+              for value in serialized_value:
                 self._export_xml_field('value', value)
         else:
             self._xg_characters(serialized_value)
@@ -150,7 +154,7 @@ class XmlItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
     # and Python 3.x will require unicode, so ">= 2.7.4" should be fine.
     if sys.version_info[:3] >= (2, 7, 4):
         def _xg_characters(self, serialized_value):
-            if not isinstance(serialized_value, unicode):
+            if not isinstance(serialized_value, six.text_type):
                 serialized_value = serialized_value.decode(self.encoding)
             return self.xg.characters(serialized_value)
     else:
@@ -177,7 +181,7 @@ class CsvItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
                 value = self._join_multivalued.join(value)
             except TypeError:  # list in value may not contain strings
                 pass
-        return value.encode(self.encoding) if isinstance(value, unicode) else value
+        return value.encode(self.encoding) if isinstance(value, six.text_type) else value
 
     def export_item(self, item):
         if self._headers_not_written:
@@ -231,7 +235,7 @@ class PprintItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
 
     def export_item(self, item):
         itemdict = dict(self._get_serialized_fields(item))
-        self.file.write(pprint.pformat(itemdict) + '\n')
+        self.file.write(to_bytes(pprint.pformat(itemdict) + '\n'))
 
 
 class PythonItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
@@ -240,6 +244,13 @@ class PythonItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
     json, msgpack, binc, etc) can be used on top of it. Its main goal is to
     seamless support what BaseItemExporter does plus nested items.
     """
+    def _configure(self, options, dont_fail=False):
+        self.binary = options.pop('binary', True)
+        super(PythonItemExporter, self)._configure(options, dont_fail)
+        if self.binary:
+            warnings.warn(
+                "PythonItemExporter will drop support for binary export in the future",
+                PendingDeprecationWarning)
 
     def serialize_field(self, field, name, value):
         serializer = field.get('serializer', self._serialize_value)
@@ -250,9 +261,13 @@ class PythonItemExporter(BaseItemExporter):
             return self.export_item(value)
         if isinstance(value, dict):
             return dict(self._serialize_dict(value))
-        if hasattr(value, '__iter__'):
+        if hasattr(value, '__iter__') \
+                and not isinstance(value, six.string_types):
             return [self._serialize_value(v) for v in value]
-        return value.encode(self.encoding) if isinstance(value, unicode) else value
+        if self.binary:
+            return to_bytes(value, encoding=self.encoding)
+        else:
+            return to_unicode(value, encoding=self.encoding)
 
     def _serialize_dict(self, value):
         for key, val in six.iteritems(value):
diff --git a/tests/test_exporters.py b/tests/test_exporters.py
index c84fb978a..05374e617 100644
--- a/tests/test_exporters.py
+++ b/tests/test_exporters.py
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ import re
 import json
 import unittest
 from io import BytesIO
+import six
 from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
 
 import lxml.etree
@@ -80,7 +81,7 @@ class BaseItemExporterTest(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(ie.serialize_field(i.fields['age'], 'age', i['age']), '24')
 
 
-class MidRefactoringBaseItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
+class IntermediateRefactoringBaseItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
     """Class introduced just to keep old behavior of BaseItemExporterTest for the
     test cases that inherit from it while we make changes to exporters one by
     one -- a needed refactoring trick because the test cases are quite coupled.
@@ -127,9 +128,9 @@ class MidRefactoringBaseItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
         self.assertEqual(ie.serialize_field(i.fields['age'], 'age', i['age']), '24')
 
 
-class PythonItemExporterTest(MidRefactoringBaseItemExporterTest):
+class PythonItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
     def _get_exporter(self, **kwargs):
-        return PythonItemExporter(**kwargs)
+        return PythonItemExporter(binary=False, **kwargs)
 
     def test_nested_item(self):
         i1 = TestItem(name=u'Joseph', age='22')
@@ -194,7 +195,8 @@ class PickleItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
         self.assertEqual(pickle.load(f), i2)
 
 
-class CsvItemExporterTest(MidRefactoringBaseItemExporterTest):
+@unittest.skipUnless(six.PY2, "TODO")
+class CsvItemExporterTest(IntermediateRefactoringBaseItemExporterTest):
 
     def _get_exporter(self, **kwargs):
         return CsvItemExporter(self.output, **kwargs)
@@ -294,13 +296,13 @@ class XmlItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
         self.assertXmlEquivalent(fp.getvalue(), expected_value)
 
     def _check_output(self):
-        expected_value = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>\n<items><item><age>22</age><name>John\xc2\xa3</name></item></items>'
+        expected_value = u'<?xml version="1.0" ?>\n<items><item><age>22</age><name>John\xa3</name></item></items>'
         self.assertXmlEquivalent(self.output.getvalue(), expected_value)
 
     def test_multivalued_fields(self):
         self.assertExportResult(
             TestItem(name=[u'John\xa3', u'Doe']),
-            '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>\n<items><item><name><value>John\xc2\xa3</value><value>Doe</value></name></item></items>'
+            u'<?xml version="1.0" ?>\n<items><item><name><value>John\xa3</value><value>Doe</value></name></item></items>'
         )
 
     def test_nested_item(self):
@@ -309,19 +311,19 @@ class XmlItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
         i3 = TestItem(name=u'buz', age=i2)
 
         self.assertExportResult(i3,
-            '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>\n'
-            '<items>'
-                '<item>'
-                    '<age>'
-                        '<age>'
-                            '<age>22</age>'
-                            '<name>foo\xc2\xa3hoo</name>'
-                        '</age>'
-                        '<name>bar</name>'
-                    '</age>'
-                    '<name>buz</name>'
-                '</item>'
-            '</items>'
+            u'<?xml version="1.0" ?>\n'
+            u'<items>'
+                u'<item>'
+                    u'<age>'
+                        u'<age>'
+                            u'<age>22</age>'
+                            u'<name>foo\xa3hoo</name>'
+                        u'</age>'
+                        u'<name>bar</name>'
+                    u'</age>'
+                    u'<name>buz</name>'
+                u'</item>'
+            u'</items>'
         )
 
     def test_nested_list_item(self):
@@ -330,16 +332,16 @@ class XmlItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
         i3 = TestItem(name=u'buz', age=[i1, i2])
 
         self.assertExportResult(i3,
-            '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>\n'
-            '<items>'
-                '<item>'
-                    '<age>'
-                        '<value><name>foo</name></value>'
-                        '<value><name>bar</name><v2><egg><value>spam</value></egg></v2></value>'
-                    '</age>'
-                    '<name>buz</name>'
-                '</item>'
-            '</items>'
+            u'<?xml version="1.0" ?>\n'
+            u'<items>'
+                u'<item>'
+                    u'<age>'
+                        u'<value><name>foo</name></value>'
+                        u'<value><name>bar</name><v2><egg><value>spam</value></egg></v2></value>'
+                    u'</age>'
+                    u'<name>buz</name>'
+                u'</item>'
+            u'</items>'
         )
 
 
@@ -351,7 +353,7 @@ class JsonLinesItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
         return JsonLinesItemExporter(self.output, **kwargs)
 
     def _check_output(self):
-        exported = json.loads(self.output.getvalue().strip())
+        exported = json.loads(to_unicode(self.output.getvalue().strip()))
         self.assertEqual(exported, dict(self.i))
 
     def test_nested_item(self):
@@ -361,7 +363,7 @@ class JsonLinesItemExporterTest(BaseItemExporterTest):
         self.ie.start_exporting()
         self.ie.export_item(i3)
         self.ie.finish_exporting()
-        exported = json.loads(self.output.getvalue())
+        exported = json.loads(to_unicode(self.output.getvalue()))
         self.assertEqual(exported, self._expected_nested)
 
     def test_extra_keywords(self):
@@ -379,7 +381,7 @@ class JsonItemExporterTest(JsonLinesItemExporterTest):
         return JsonItemExporter(self.output, **kwargs)
 
     def _check_output(self):
-        exported = json.loads(self.output.getvalue().strip())
+        exported = json.loads(to_unicode(self.output.getvalue().strip()))
         self.assertEqual(exported, [dict(self.i)])
 
     def assertTwoItemsExported(self, item):
@@ -387,7 +389,7 @@ class JsonItemExporterTest(JsonLinesItemExporterTest):
         self.ie.export_item(item)
         self.ie.export_item(item)
         self.ie.finish_exporting()
-        exported = json.loads(self.output.getvalue())
+        exported = json.loads(to_unicode(self.output.getvalue()))
         self.assertEqual(exported, [dict(item), dict(item)])
 
     def test_two_items(self):
@@ -403,7 +405,7 @@ class JsonItemExporterTest(JsonLinesItemExporterTest):
         self.ie.start_exporting()
         self.ie.export_item(i3)
         self.ie.finish_exporting()
-        exported = json.loads(self.output.getvalue())
+        exported = json.loads(to_unicode(self.output.getvalue()))
         expected = {'name': u'Jesus', 'age': {'name': 'Maria', 'age': dict(i1)}}
         self.assertEqual(exported, [expected])
 
@@ -414,7 +416,7 @@ class JsonItemExporterTest(JsonLinesItemExporterTest):
         self.ie.start_exporting()
         self.ie.export_item(i3)
         self.ie.finish_exporting()
-        exported = json.loads(self.output.getvalue())
+        exported = json.loads(to_unicode(self.output.getvalue()))
         expected = {'name': u'Jesus', 'age': {'name': 'Maria', 'age': i1}}
         self.assertEqual(exported, [expected])