Retail Geography (RLE Retailing and Distribution) 9781136246159, 9780415540353

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ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: RETAILING AND DISTRIBUTION

RETAIL GEOGRAPHY

RETAIL GEOGRAPHY

Edited by JOHN A. DAWSON

Volume 7

R Routledge

Taylor &. Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published in 1980 This edition first published in 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © John A. Dawson, Introduction, Ch.4, Ch.5, selection, editorial matter, 1980 © I.D. Shepherd and C.J. Thomas, Ch.1 © P.T. Kivell and G. Shaw Ch.2 © R.L. Davies and D.A. Kirby Ch.3 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-415-51032-5 (Set) eISBN: 978-0-203-10362-3 (Set) ISBN: 978-0-415-54035-3 (Volume 7) eISBN: 978-0-203-10373-9 (Volume 7) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

RETAIL GEOGRAPHY

EDITED BY JOHN A. DAWSON A HALSTEAD PRESS BOOK

CROOM HELM LONDON JOHN WILEY & SONS New York

©1980 John A. Dawson, Introduction, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, selection, editorial matter. ©I.D. Shepherd and C.J. Thomas Ch. 1. ©P.T. Kivell and G. Shaw Ch. 2. ©R.L. Davies and D.A. Kirby Ch. 3. Croom Helm Ltd, 2-10 St John's Road, London SW11 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Retail geography. 1. Retail trade 2. Geography, Commercial I. Dawson, John Alan 381\09 HF5429 ISBN 0-7099-0263-8 Published in the U.S.A. by Halsted Press, a Division of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. ISBN 0-470-27014-4

Reproduced from copy supplied printed and bound in Great Britain by Billing and Sons Limited Guildford, London, Oxford, Worcester

CONTENTS

List of Tables list of Figures Introduction

13

1. Urban Consumer Behaviour I.D. Shepherd and C.J. Thomas

18

Normative Spatial Models Central Place Theory Spatial Interaction Theory

20 20 23

The Behavioural Approaches The Theoretical Behavioural Approach The Empirical Behavioural Approach The Cognitive Behavioural Approach

29 29 33 61

The Marketing Approach to the Study of Consumer Behaviour

74

Conclusions

81

References

86

2. The Study of Retail Location P.T. KivellandG. Shaw Problems of Classification and Organisation

95 96

The Study of Shopping Centre Location Economic Theory Land Value Theory Central Place Theory Spatial Interaction Models Ecological Analogies

99 99 103 107 113 118

Store Location Research and the Study of Shop Patterns A Marketing Geography Approach Store Location Studies in Britain Spatial Statistics and the Study of Shop Patterns

120 120 123 126

Changes in Retail Location Studies of Retail Location Change Conceptual Views of Retail Location Change Retail Decentralisation The Changing Retail Component of the Central Business District Retail Location Change and the British Planning Sytem

139 143

Conclusions

145

References

148

3. Retail Organisation R.L. Davies andD.A. Kirby

129 129 133 136

156

The Distribution System The System of Retailing Wholesale-Retail Relations The Techniques of Retailing

157 157 158 160

The Evolution of Retailing

162

Modern Trends in Retailing Sources of Information The Development of New Stores International Comparisons The Relative Health of Retailing

165 165 167 168 169

The Impact of Change The Effects of Large Superstores and Hypermarkets Problems and Prospects for Small Shops

171 171 173

Shopping Centre Developments Typologies and Classifications The Development Process The Impact of New Schemes The Future of the Central Area

175 176 177 178 180

Store Assessment Research

181

Needs in Future Research

182

References

183

4. Retail Activity and Public Policy J.A. Dawson

193

Location Policies The Lack of Effective Policies A Model of Location Policy Formulation Preliminary Recognition and Definition of Problems Definition of the Planning Task Data Collection, Analysis and Forecasting Determination of Constraints and Objectives Formulation of Operational Criteria for Design Plan Design Testing of Alternative Plans Plan Evaluation Decision-Making Plan Implementation

196 196 199 199 201 201 203 207 210 210 211 211 211

Retail Price Policies

213

Business Structure Policies The Concept of Efficiency Pro-competitive Policies Policies to Encourage Retail Growth The Control of Market Power

215 216 216 218 220

Control of the Birth and Death of Firms

223

Consumer Protection Policies

225

Indirect Influences of Social and Economic Policies

227

References

229

5. Conclusions J.A. Dawson

236

A Possible Research Framework

238

References

241

Notes on Contributors

242

Index

244

TABLES

1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1

Vehicle licences Held by Age and Sex Relationships in the Urban Retail Subsystem Analogies in Taxonomic Classification of Retail Complexes, Settlements and Urban Land Use Forms Developments in Store Location Research Proportion of Total SMLA Turnover in Central Areas A Sample of Early British Studies of the Impact of Large New Stores

50 97 97 121 141 171

FIGURES

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 2.1 2.2 2.3

2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 5.1

Interrelationships between the Alternative Approaches to the Study of Intra-urban Consumer Shopping Behaviour Huffs Conceptualisation of the Consumer Decision-Making Process The Katona Model of the Behaviour Cycle The Howard and Sheth Model of the Behaviour Cycle The Andreasen Model of Consumer Behaviour The Nicosia Model of Buyer Behaviour The Howard-Sheth Model of Consumer Behaviour The Multimediational Model of Consumer Behaviour Theoretical Demand Cones Hypothetical Rent Gradient in an Unplanned Shopping Centre (after Scott, 1970) The Internal Structure of Regional, Community and Neighbourhood Level Shopping Centres (after Garner, 1966) Characteristic Functions of Outlying Retail Nucleations (after Berry, 1959) Typology of Business Areas within the Metropolis (after Berry, 1967) Formula for the Basic Equation of the Shopping Model Forces Leading to Changes in Retail Location (after Simmons, 1964) Interceptor Rings in Detroit (after Nelson, 1958) Major Themes in British Retail Geography (after Thorpe, 1978) A Possible Institutional Framework for Retail Geography

20 30 62 63 76 77 78 79 101 104

106 110 111 116 134 138 147 239

INTRODUCTION

The retail sector of the economy has been a key area of interest to human geographers for many decades. Not only has it provided the stimulus to considerable empirical, technical and conceptual advances in geography, but it has also provided a major area of analysis where geographers have applied their specialist knowledge to solve real world problems. Given this core position over some decades, the time would seem appropriate to review critically the state of retail geography and perhaps to isolate some of the major gaps in our knowledge of retail systems. From such a benchmark it then becomes possible to advance research and its application within the general sphere of retailing. During the 1930s and 1940s the perceived links between retail activity and urban status led to retailing playing a central role in the burgeoning analyses of urban functions and morphology. Both in North America, through Hoyt's and Proudfoot's pioneering work, and in Europe, in seminal work by Christaller, Smailes and others, retailing was shown, by geographers, to be a major component of the urban environment. Retailing retains this key position within economic and social studies of the city and from this substantial base in the 1930s subsequent studies in retail geography have reflected the swings of the pendulum of geographical philosophy through quantitative and behavioural movements to the more recent welfare-based assertive philosophy of 'relevance'. Although the comparative popularity of the various branches of geography has changed with the swings of the philosophical pendulum, the study of retailing has remained a key component of theoretical and empirical urban geographical analyses. The emergence of quantitative studies and normative modelling in geography generally owed much to the 1950s school of central place theorists. Within retail geography, central place theory provided an attractive and addictive series of models of the spatial pattern of retail provision and of relationships amongst clusters of shops. Developments in retail geography went hand in hand with the 'quantitative revolution' that affected all branches of geography. Through studies of retail activity urban geographers such as Berry and Garner showed the value of a quantitative framework for research and particularly of an approach through statistical analysis, notably with the linear model. Other workers whose primary concern was quantitative spatial analysis

14

Introduction

frequently used data referring to retailing, as in the studies by Dacey and Rogers. The refinement of central place theory has involved the incorporation of more realistic retail concepts as researchers have responded to criticism of the theory's utility, but in many cases the basic assumptions underlying the thory have led researchers to reject central place theory and to search for another paradigm. Scott, in his book on Retail Geography, for example (p. 12), points out that 'the central place model cannot be readily reconciled with our knowledge of retail location derived from economic theory and from the behaviour of both consumers and entrepreneurs.' Although no longer in as common use as during the 1950s and early 1960s, central place theory still provides, for some workers, a conceptual basis for present-day research, but the applicability and practical utility of the model must be limited severely. Paralleling the growth of work on central place theory were quantitative analyses of trade areas. This branch of study led to the development of the 'shopping model' which balanced consumer spending with shopping district and shopping centre sales. The assignment of consumer purchases to particular shop groups followed strict rules in the early models. The simple linear model of statistics was applied widely. Unease at the normative underpinnings of theory and model led increasing numbers of retail geographers to eschew the hard-line quantitative approach and to explore behavioural concepts under development in psychology and sociology. The work of Golledge, Rushton, Huff and others in the USA in the early 1960s piloted human geographers around the reefs of the behavioural sciences. As with the quantitative movement, the retailing system and particularly the consumer shopping subsystem was particularly susceptible to analysis by the new conceptual framework and the leaders of the behavioural school frequently focused attention on retail activity. The momentum of retail geography was sustained through the 1960s with sorties into perceptual issues, a refinement of behavioural concepts and attempts to temper the earlier normative models by assigning probabilities to different behavioural traits. Many of the conceptual advances within behavioural geography generally were undertaken by retail geographers interested in consumer behaviour. Strangely, in retrospect, there was little activity on organisational behaviour, although the retail organisation was the basis of central place theory. Many of the behavioural-based studies in retail geography have reduced the scale of analysis to the individual and, partly in

Introduction

15

consequence of this, have become embroiled in a massive problem of finding structure within large data sets. Whilst some useful concepts and hypotheses have been formulated, relatively few theories have been tested and accepted. There has been evidence of increasing disenchantment as ever increasing quantities of survey data analysed by an even wider variety of techniques have produced virtually no coherent body of general theory. Retail geography is not alone with this problem, but it applies equally to the whole of urban geography and it has been realised that perception and cognition are not, on their own, the retail or urban geographer's touchstones. With the quantitative and behavioural movements retail geography was in the vanguard but this, at first glance, would seem to be less apparent in the more recent trend to an ideologically based 'relevant' approach to geography. Reactions against quantification and behaviouralism have been strongest in those aspects of human geography concerned with the non-economic activities of society, and retail geographers, for this reason, may be seen, perhaps wrongly, as followers rather than leaders of the 'relevance revolution'. None the less, research on ghetto retailing, the comparative consumer equity of different retail systems and retail planning show that retail geographers have reacted positiviely to the stimulus of recent pleas for socially relevant research, but, more importantly, there is a long tradition of the direct application of geography to the retail industry. The considerable recent interest in retailing as a factor in the development process of African, Asian and Latin American economies may also be related to the social justice movement, but there are clear links here with both central place theory and the behavioural school of study. The absence of studies of retailing in the vanguard of the Marxistbased social relevance school may well be a reflection of the long tradition of applied studies within retail geography. Since Stamp in the 1930s and Applebaum in the 1940s, strong cases have been made for the applicability of retail geography, and there are many examples of the business world, and more recently land use planning authorities, making use of the expertise of retail geographers. Social relevance is not a new concept, but the ideological basis of the new social relevance school is different from that underlying the socially relevant studies of retail geography carried out since the 1940s. The contrast is between relevance to issues in welfare economics and relevance to issues in market economics. This is not to argue that retail geographers are not interested, involved or concerned with social justice, but, first, that applicability is nothing new, and, secondly, perforce they have to

16

Introduction

balance social and economic considerations within the retail planning process. The current social relevance movement in geography has a strong visionary and speculative basis somewhat at odds with the more practical aims of applied retail geography, and so whilst few retail geographers have manned the barricades of the social relevance revolution, many are deeply committed to applied geography. Certainly for many reasons the late 1970s seems an appropriate time to review research in retail geography, to isolate its successes and failures, to point to possible new research areas and so to launch it on a new dynamic. Such are the aims of the essays in this volume. Retail geography is well provided with general texts. The books by Berry, Scott, Davies and more recently by Beaujeu-Garnier and Delobez, and Dawson, provide systematic accounts of the components of retailing, but are not essentially research reviews isolating gaps and pointing to future researchable areas. The four substantive essays in the following pages provide critical reviews of the current state of retail geography, but of necessity draw on material from other disciplines. In order to review the material relevant to retail geography it is necessary to impose some structure on the wide range of somewhat diffuse literature. The following essays, it must be stressed, concentrate on research into retailing in Western developed capitalist society. Retail geography is concerned as much with the demand for services as their supply, and so the first essay by Shepherd and Thomas concentrates on consumer behaviour and the spatial processes which have been isolated as influencing shopping behaviour. Normative and behavioural approaches are reviewed in showing where the under-researched areas lie. Inevitably location affects the behaviour of a shop's patrons and the second essay by Kivell and Shaw concentrates on store location. Although optimal locations have changed, few studies have explored the processes influencing locational change in retailing. Retail location has perhaps been the common central theme to retail geography over the last half century, for the right location has been viewed as critical to business success. Davies and Kirby, in the third essay, by concentrating on the organisation of retailing, show location to be one of several factors influencing business success and failure. The fourth essay reviews the research on how government at various levels influences, positively and negatively, the spatial patterns and processes of retailing. Other divisions of the subject-matter could have been imposed on the reader, but all are to a degree arbitrary. The stimulus for producing these essays came from the Social Science Research Council who, during 1978 and 1979, sponsored a

Introduction

17

series of seminars on Geography and Retailing. Without the financial help provided by the Council this volume probably would never have been prepared. Thanks are due to the discussants at these seminars for their comments and criticisms of the original drafts of seminar papers which have become the essays in this book. In particular the comments of Dr David Thorpe, Dr Michael Bradford and Dr Neil Wrigley have been particularly useful. Finally, thanks are due to Mrs Margaret Walker, who typed the text.

1

URBAN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR I.D.H. Shepherd and C.J. Thomas

The aim of this chapter is to focus attention on the recent academic literature relevant to the analysis of spatial patterns and processes associated with consumer shopping behaviour in Western industrial societies at the intra-urban scale of investigation. The literature relevant to this subject is extensive and a considerable variety of approaches and methods of investigation exists. This review describes and evaluates the range of approaches adopted and suggests the manner in which they are interrelated. Particular attention is paid to the recognition of significant gaps in current knowledge and, where appropriate, suggestions are made to direct future work to topics deemed to be of academic or practical planning significance. The emphasis of the review is on geographical sources, but the increasing interdisciplinary nature of this topic is recognised and appropriate excursions are made into the marketing literature — which emphasises economic, psychological and sociological concepts and methods — and into psychology and anthropology. However, no attempt is made to cover the growing literature emerging from the field of urban modelling. This work involves the development of highly sophisticated mathematical and statistical models and aspects of this work, as exemplified by Wilson (1974), Batty (1978) and Openshaw (1975, 1976), are clearly relevant to the investigation of consumer spatial behaviour. This work is beyond the scope of this particular review, which tends more towards an empirical emphasis, but it is more fully covered in the next chapter. The emphasis of the early studies in the geography of retailing in cities was concerned with the empirical recognition (Proudfoot, 1937) and explanation, initially via central place theory (Berry and Garrison, 1958; Berry et al, 1963) of regularities in the spatial system of shopping centres. Shopper behaviour as such was rarely specifically considered. Instead, the system of centres was assumed to be in a state of adjustment with the distribution of consumer demand across the city. The implication, which is made explicit in central place theory, is that in normal circumstances a consumer will tend to shop at the nearest centre offering the good or service which he requires. Thus, from a knowledge of the distribution of consumer demand and the spatial structure of the shopping system, the vast majority of 18

Urban Consumer Behaviour

19

behavioural interaction might be predicted with ease. If this notion is correct, it clearly provides a relatively simple model for retail planning proposals, whether they emanate from commercial or public organisations. The strength of the relationship between structure and behaviour was assumed rather than demonstrated and did not bear close examination in either rural (Thomas etal. 1962) or urban (Clark, 1968) situations. In addition, it further implies that 'consumer sovereignty' is the major determinant of the availability of spatial shopping opportunities. This clearly overstates the case in the period after 1960. Many major developments in the organisation and control of retailing after that date (Dawson, 1977) have initiated changes in the spatial pattern and organisation of shopping facilities which do not necessarily reflect consumer pressure. In North America the growing scale of organisation of retail firms combined with relatively ineffective planning controls are highly significant, while in Britain a stronger planning framework combined with planning ideals developed in accordance with some of the concepts of central place theory are of considerable importance (Davies, 1976). As a result of the recognition of the inadequacy of early simplistic behavioural assumptions, considerable interest has grown in the study of consumer spatial behaviour, and a great variety of approaches and methods of analysis now exist. However, the resulting corpus of literature is not well integrated and a refined theory of consumer spatial behaviour does not exist. Nevertheless, it might be suggested that a unifying theme can be recognised in this work in that the aim of much of the research is to explain behavioural patterns and their variations and, ultimately, to predict future relationships in an attempt to refine planning policy proposals. This review is broadly structured in a similar way to that of Thomas (1976). A basic distinction is made between normative spatial models and behavioural approaches and these are further subdivided into the categories indicated in Figure 1.1. Most of the literature falls conveniently into these categories for the purposes of preliminary discussion, although it is interesting to note that recent studies have increasingly given attention to more than a single category, while additional elements can be recognised in the literature which has emerged since 1974.

20

Urban Consumer Behaviour

Figure 1.1: Interrelationships between Alternative Approaches to the Study of Intra-urban Consumer Shopping Behaviour NORMATIVE SPATIAL MODELS

Central Place Theory

Spatial Interaction Theory

Cognitive

Theoretical

BEHAVIOURAL

APPROACHES

Normative Spatial Models The normative spatial models represent an aggregate approach to the study of consumer spatial behaviour. Groups of people, usually defined geographically by place of residence, are considered to behave in accordance with postulated assumptions or norms which are considered to result in optimal patterns of spatial behaviour. The models most relevant to the current context are those associated with central place theory and spatial interaction theory. Central Place Theory Since the seminal work of Christaller (1933), interest in central place theory in geography has been considerable and a prodigious amount of literature has been generated. However, the great majority of this work has been concerned with the deductive theoretical basis for the development of hierarchical systems of service centres at the interurban scales and the empirical testing of the validity of such systems in the real world. Comprehensive reviews of such work are available elsewhere and their reiteration here is unnecessary (Beavon, 1977). Within this body of literature, interest in consumer behaviour has been secondary and patterns of behaviour have been largely inferred rather

Urban Consumer Behaviour

21

than empirically derived. Human behaviour has been assumed to conform to the economic man concept, and both suppliers and consumers of services are credited with perfect information and the ability to make economically rational decisions. The theory assumes that an optimal location decision is made by the suppliers of services and that every consumer undertakes an economically rational journey to consume (Pred, 1967). The suppliers' decision is assumed to be determined by the 'threshold' concept, which states that a service will not be provided in a location unless a local market capable of supporting it at a profit exists. The market population normally will be located beyond the maximum sphere of influence (range) of any other centre supplying the service. The journey to consume is assumed to be determined by the range. The consumer will normally travel to the nearest centre within whose range he happens to live, in order to minimise the time-cost budget of the journey. Interest currently centres on the latter concept which gives rise to the nearest centre hypothesis as the basic behavioural tenet of central place theory, i.e. that a consumer will visit the nearest centre supplying a good or service. However, it is now apparent that this inference results in a serious overstatement of behavioural realities. A considerable amount of information now exists which demonstrates the limitations of the hypothesis in the Western urban context (Clark, 1968; Ambrose, 1967; Day, 1973), so that at best it can be considered only a partial explanation for consumer shopping behaviour. For example, Clark's (1968) study of Christchurch shoppers indicated that only 50-60 per cent of convenience shopping trips could be predicted by the nearest centre hypothesis. The situation is perhaps not too surprising, since according to Pred (1967), even Christaller's original work recognised two circumstances in which the behavioural assumption might deviate from the norm. First, shoppers may attempt to maximise total travel effort, often by combining shopping in a multi-purpose trip, rather than merely minimising the travel cost for an individual good. Thus, a consumer may obtain both low- and high-order goods at a high-order centre which is more distant than the closest low-order centre. Secondly, a shopper may travel to a distant centre if sales price savings exceed additional transport costs. It is difficult to envisage how such behavioural variations could be comprehensively incorporated into a modified central place theory. Other features also limit the applicability of the behavioural assumption of central place theory at the intra-urban scale. Pred (1967)

22

Urban Consumer Behaviour

has suggested that consumers of services (like suppliers) are more likely to be 'boundedly rational satisficers' rather than 'economic men'. Thus, consumer behaviour is considered to be constrained by the fact that the individual is likely to have an incomplete knowledge of the overall nature of the supply system and will, for many social reasons, be satisfied by undertaking journeys which will not necessarily result in an economic optimisation of potential opportunities. Thus, consumer spatial behaviour is as likely to be socially sub-optimal as economically optimal. Also, at the intra-urban scale, the range of possible alternative shopping opportunities is constantly increasing. This results from improvements in personal mobility and from increasing consumer awareness related to developments in education and advertising, and is demonstrated in the emergence of overlapping hinterlands of shopping centres at all hierarchical levels (Berry et al, 1963). Incorporation into central place theory of behavioural variations such as these would modify the theory out of all recognition, if indeed such an exercise were possible. For this reason, presumably, little recent work on consumer behaviour has been specifically related to central place theory. In fact, the only recent article to address the nearest centre hypothesis specifically (Fingleton, 1975), based on an exhaustive statistical analysis of convenience goods shopping in Manchester, suggests its lack of applicability due to variability in behaviour related to variations in the age, car ownership and income levels of consumers. However, a recent review of intra-urban shopping patterns in British towns suggests that: To a very large extent, the residents of British towns do use the nearest shopping centre offering a given type, quality and combination of goods and services. There are certain factors which can over-ride movement minimization, but this assumption is unusually valid: there are few spatial generalisations concerning human behaviour that are empirically so well supported (Warnes and Daniels, 1978). However, while agreeing with the evidence behind this assertion and with its general sentiment, it is highly debatable whether such an assertion could form the basis of a comprehensive approach to the study of intra-urban shopping behaviour. The problem arises in the phrase 'nearest shopping centre offering a given type, quality and combination of goods and services'. Given by whom? Presumably this relates to the individual shopper? If so, the 'type, quality and

Urban Consumer Behaviour

23

combination of goods and services' will be invariably defined by the individual shopper in terms of the required goods on a particular trip, mobility constraints on behaviour or, even more nebulously, level of satisfaction demanded. Such factors are likely to vary amongst individuals living in the same residential area, and by groups living in different residential areas with differing access to shopping opportunities. Clearly, the discussion has moved into the realms of the empirical, behavioural and cognitive-behavioural approaches to the study of shopping behaviour (Thomas, 1976). If the evidence and information provided by such studies could be successfully incorporated into a modified central place theory, then the approach implied by Warnes and Daniels might be justified. At the moment it is difficult to see how this might be accomplished and, in the absence of any direction on this point, their suggestion must remain speculative. Thus, it appears at the moment that central place theory provides, at best, only a partial explanation for shopping behaviour in the intraurban situation and that the refinements necessary to rectify this situation are likely to prove extremely difficult. Consequently, it might be suggested that the value of central place theory in the study of consumer spatial behaviour in cities is most relevant to an understanding of the fundaments of the spatial structure of shopping opportunities, and serves as a useful pedagogic introduction to the study of consumer behaviour. However, the detailed limitations and constraints on its behavioural assumptions suggest that further investigation of consumer spatial behaviour is most likely to progress through an alternative research framework. Spatial Interaction Theory Spatial interaction theory offers an alternative normative model designed to explain behavioural interaction. The assumption that behaviour is explained by consumers using the nearest offering of a good or service is discarded. Instead, behaviour is assumed to be determined by a more complex trade-off of the advantages of centre size (or more generally attraction) of the centres against the disadvantages of distance (or more generally disincentive) of the consumers to the centres. This was derived from the 'law of retail gravitation' (Reilly, 1931) and is intuitively based on an analogy with Newtonian physics and empirical observations of shopping behaviour in an inter-urban context. At the intra-urban scale, the wider range of shopping opportunities within relatively short distances renders the two-centre case of the

24

Urban Consumer Behaviour

original formulation inappropriately deterministic. In these circumstances, Huff (1963) considered it more likely that more than one centre will be used by the residents of a particular area with varying degrees of probability. The probability of the residents of an area using any particular centre was considered likely to vary in direct proportion to the relative attraction of the centre, in inverse proportion to some function of distance between the centre and the residential area, and in inverse proportion to the competition exerted upon the earlier relationship by all other centres in the system. These behavioural assumptions were independently incorporated into a probabilistic reformulation of the gravity model by Lakshmanan and Hansen (1965), which was designed to estimate the shopping expenditure flows between any residential area (i) and shopping centre (j) in a system:

Sij =

C

i

_ V

where Sy

= the shopping expenditure of residents in area i spent in centre j ; Aj = the size (or index of shopping attraction) of centre j ; Dy = the distance from area i to centre j ; b = an exponent empirically calibrated using known origindestination data to express the distance disincentive function operating in the system under investigation; Cj = the total shopping expenditure of residents in area i.

The model was applied to the pattern of shopping trips to higherorder centres in metropolitan Baltimore and was found to provide a reasonable description of behavioural interaction. It was then rerun incorporating possible future residential areas and service centre structures in an attempt to evaluate the planning potential and problems which might be associated with alternative strategies. Assuming for the moment that the behavioural assumptions of the model are reasonably valid, it seems that it could represent a powerful tool to assist decision-makers in formulating strategies for the

Urban Consumer Behaviour

25

development of systems of shopping centres within cities (see Chapter 4). It also has the considerable advantage of flexibility. It can be disaggregated in accordance with important variations in the behavioural dynamics of shopping interaction which can be established by empirical analysis (Thomas, 1976). For example, it can be applied separately for the traditionally adopted 'convenience', 'durable' and 'specialist' categories of shopping trips (though further investigation on the lines suggested by Mottershaw (1968) might ultimately suggest the need for a more refined degree of trip disaggregation), or it can be disaggregated or modified in accordance with significant variations in the socio-economic characteristics of groups of consumers which are associated with varying shopping trip patterns since the basic profile information is now available from the census at the enumeration district level (Bucklin, 1971). Variants of this model have subsequently been used extensively by planning authorities, particularly in Britain at the sub-regional scale of analysis rather than within the city (Kantorowich, 1966; Rhodes and Whitaker, 1967; Murray and Kennedy, 1971; Parry-Lewis and Bridges, 1974). At this scale of analysis possible theoretical criticisms of the model and problems of operationalisation are apparently tolerated or circumvented where the aim is merely to provide a general indication of medium-term changes in patterns of behavioural interaction as a partial aid to policy formulation. Two noteworthy practical modifications of the model have often been introduced. First, Lakshmanan and Hansen (1965) assumed that the exponent value (b) attached to the distance parameter to define the distance-disincentive function was calibrated from figures for the known turnovers of centres and from origin-destination surveys of flows of consumers to centres for at least a part of the system under review. By utilising this procedure it was possible to evaluate rigorously the performance of the model by comparing the predicted and known sales of the centres and the interaction in the system. However, due to the considerable cost of obtaining the interaction data, this method of calibration has rarely been undertaken. Instead, it has been more usual for calibration to be achieved by using a mechanical, computer-based iteration procedure which only minimises the difference between the known and predicted turnovers of the centres. This introduces the problem that, while the model appears mechanically sound, it might bear little relation to the behavioural interaction which it is assumed to have modelled. Secondly, an exponent (a) has often been added to the index of

26

Urban Consumer Behaviour

centre attraction to allow for the fact that a larger centre is likely to be disproportionately more attractive than a smaller centre due to the possibilities of comparison shopping and multi-purpose trips, or less attractive due to the possibilities of increased congestion. The possibility of allowing two exponents to vary independently during the calibration process, in the absence of behavioural interaction data, merely compounds the problems and reduces confidence in the behavioural performance of the derived model. Clearly, a number of alternative combinations of exponents a and b might produce almost equally good fits, while if a completely mechanical iteration process is used, a trivial solution at b = 0 tends to dominate the search procedure. This problem has been investigated by Openshaw (1973), who concludes that it is not possible to obtain an acceptable calibration of a shopping model where trip information is lacking. Clearly, investigations using either or both of these modifications must be regarded with caution. Even more fundamental criticisms of the gravity model approach to the study of shopping behaviour have been made. Jensen-Butler (1972) considers that, like central place theory, it proposes a theory of aggregate consumer behaviour which lacks a sound basis in behavioural investigation. The normative assumptions may be important determinants of behaviour, but they are considered to be intuitively derived rather than theoretically developed and may, therefore, be associated with behavioural interaction in a non-explanatory manner. Consequently, additional detailed investigation of the behavioural dynamics of trips is necessary before the model can be considered to provide a comprehensive explanation of behaviour. It is clear that Jensen-Butler's point is substantially correct, although it might be considered unduly pessimistic in view of the increasing amounts of empirical information concerning shopping trips which were becoming available at the time he wrote. The three assumed determinants of the shopping behaviour pattern of a particular consumer segment - the attraction of centres, the disincentive associated with distance and the competitive influence of alternative centres in the system - all appear to exert a strong influence on shopping behaviour (Thomas, 1976), and no significant additional factor has yet been consistently identified as a major determinant of behavioural variation. In fact, it is interesting to note that a study of shopping behaviour patterns in the Tayside sub-region using a stepwise multiple regression model concluded that over 78 per cent of the variance associated with the use of a centre was associated with an

Urban Consumer Behaviour

27

index of relative shopping centre attractiveness in conjunction with distance travelled (Pacione, 1974). Similarly, a recent study of people's choice of bowling alley in Buffalo (using the method of revealed space preferences) showed that 81 per cent of the behavioural variation was associated with the size of centre (37 per cent) in conjunction with distance travelled (44 per cent) (Lieber, 1977). An array of additional criticisms has also been made concerning the theoretical basis and practical operations of the model. Its predictive use is fraught with difficulties because it is essentially an allocative description of an existing situation, established using data describing the existing or a relatively recent situation. Problems of extrapolation abound. The extrapolation of the attraction index forward in time is a problem since new shopping centres are functionally and environmentally different from the old, while the extrapolation of the distance-disincentive function into a different, and possibly fundamentally different behavioural context, is also questionable and should be undertaken with considerable caution. However, it might be suggested that these problems may not be insurmountable, particularly if prediction is confined to medium-term planning. It has also been argued that the usual use of a simple exponent value to define the distance-disincentive function has no theoretical justification and that more complex functions which are more appropriate descriptions of real behavioural interaction should be investigated as viable alternatives (Jensen-Butler, 1972). Also the data requirements of the model are not without difficulties. These can be summed up as the problem of obtaining data sufficiently refined for the sophistication of the model. Attention has already been drawn to the cost involved in obtaining sample household interaction data, while in Britain the attraction factor has also been difficult to obtain on a refined basis. Traditionally, key criteria or numerical counts of business types have been used and more recently floor space or turnover figures from the Census of Distribution have tended to supersede the earlier indicators. However, up-to-date turnover figures are still not easily available, particularly for the smaller centres which are most relevant for intra-urban investigation. Clearly, there are considerable problems associated with the principles and practical operation of the probabilistic reformulation of the gravity model at the intra-urban scale of analysis. Nevertheless, it might be suggested that none of these seems totally insurmountable and, given the potential practical value of the model, it is rather surprising that little research effort has gone into attempts to refine the

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original formulation in the practical context of retail planning within the city. Perhaps this represents a worthwhile direction for further research effort. In fact, recent literature yields relatively little information on the refinement of the model for the intra-urban situation. The relevance of the work of Pacione (1974) and lieber (1977) to the attractiondisincentive factor as a determinant of behaviour has already been mentioned. In addition, Higgs et al. (1976) have suggested the use of Konig numbers as a measure of intra-urban accessibility in cities in the USA, since this is considered to be a close surrogate of journey time and a better measure of disincentive than raw distance measures. Similarly, Young (1975) has investigated the relationship of distance decay functions to shopping behaviour in the suburbs of Philadelphia for trips to community and regional shopping centres. He concludes that a distance decay function of 2.0 is appropriate for trips to community centres but 1.0 is more appropriate for regional centres. The relative lack of interest in the refinement of the behavioural assumptions and practical operation of the early model might well reflect the alternative interests of those principally involved in research in spatial interaction theory. Interest has centred increasingly on the development of more comprehensive models which include all aspects of interaction in the urban system rather than on the practical aspects of retail planning alone. This work has principally been associated with the entropy-maximising approach of Wilson (1970, 1971, 1974), and significant aspects of it are clearly relevant to consumer spatial behaviour (Batty, 1976;Openshaw, 1976). However, spatial interaction theory continues to be subject to considerable critical scrutiny on theoretical, technical and behavioural groups, as exemplified by Olsson's comprehensive review (Olsson, 1975). More specifically, Sayer (1977) has been critical of the entropymaximising forms of the gravity model in the context of studies of journeys to work. He suggests that they provide an essentially statistical description of a particular existing situation and are insufficiently robust for predictive purposes since they are divorced from the behavioural processes to which they relate. In summary, despite the relatively long-established nature of work in thisfield,it appears still to be in a formative phase and awaits rigorous behavioural validation.

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The Behavioural Approaches The limitations of the aggregate behavioural assumptions of the normative spatial models strongly indicate the need for further research into both the nature of, and the motivations behind, consumer behaviour. Recognition of these limitations has generated research which has contributed to the development of a theory of consumer behaviour based on information derived from the individual scale of investigation. The interrelationships between the resulting foci can be illustrated with reference to Huffs (1960) conceptualisation of the consumer decision-making process (Figure 1.2). Huff suggested that behaviour was the result of the interaction of three compound elements, complicated by each having a partly objective and partly perceptual facet. The first comprised the effects of geographical location and social differentiation, the second the nature of the available service facilities, and the third the influence of personal mobility. The theoretical behavioural approach attempts to develop an alternative theory of consumer behaviour which subsumes the factors suggested by Huff and is, therefore, somewhat similar in scope to the normative models. The empirical behavioural approach concentrates more specifically upon the classification of such factors as residential location and social stratification. The cognitive approach has similar foci of attention, but concentrates more on the perceptual dimensions of consumer decision-making. For the most part, the latter two approaches currently aim at the refinement of existing theory, but they do not exclude the ultimate development of alternative models. Each approach is considered separately below. The Theoretical Behavioural Approach The only major attempt to develop an alternative theory of consumer behaviour remains that derived from the work of Rushton, Golledge and Clark (1967) in rural Iowa. They demonstrated the limitations of the nearest centre hypothesis of central place theory and suggested, like the workers in spatial interaction theory, that behaviour was far more likely to be related to a complex trade-off of the advantages of increasing centre size against the difficulty of travelling to the centres. The basic problem to be overcome in the development of new behavioural postulates was acknowledged in the original paper and developed more fully by Rushton (1969); i.e. the fact that structure and behaviour in a system are in a state of interdependent adjustment.

Figure 1.2: Huff's Conceptualisation of the Consumer Decision-making Process

30 Urban Consumer Behaviour

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Behavioural generalisations from survey data are, therefore, descriptions of the particular situation under review rather than explanatory postulates which can be expected to be applicable beyond the scope of a unique situation. To overcome this problem the 'revealed space preference' method was developed. An aspatial graphical representation of consumer spatial opportunities was devised, the Y-axis representing increasing centre size and the X-axis increasing distance from the consumer to a centre. Using data from a shopping behaviour survey, a centre attractiveness index (or revealed space preference) was computed which indicated the relative attractiveness of each locational type to the sample population. Using these values isopleths were drawn, and these graphically expressed the centre attractiveness indifference curves. The procedure by which any particular centre is assigned to its corresponding locational type was claimed to abstract spatial choice and spatial structure from their unique context. In this way a rank ordering of all spatial opportunities was derived from the aggregate spatial preferences of the respondents. This method was believed to avoid the limitations of earlier behavioural studies which tended to be descriptions of behaviour in particular spatial contexts. The methodology was applied to the intra-urban situation by Clark and Rushton (1970). Subsequently, however, the method has achieved little success in the derivation of alternative theoretical postulates to explain consumer behaviour. Early tests of the technique compared the extent to which the indifference curves derived from observed behaviour were capable of independently generating the same spatial choices, given only the location of the sample households. In Christchurch, its predictive capability was consistently below 50 per cent for a range of convenience goods and services. Clearly, the index of attraction did not appear to represent a significant improvement upon the nearest centre hypothesis. In fact, this result suggests that the indifference curves represent a description of the average response of the sample population rather than explanatory behavioural postulates. This casts doubt on the assertion that the revealed space preferences express spatial choices in a form which is completely independent of the unique characteristics of a particular spatial context. A similar doubt was expressed by Eyles (1971), who asserted that the presence of one spatial alternative decreases the probability that some other spatial situation will also be present. Additional criticisms have been expressed as to the value of the method in the development of a comprehensive theory of shopping

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behaviour. Eyles (1971) objected to the fact that the technique implies that spatial behaviour is only determined by preferences, and suggested that the study of constraints upon spatial behaviour — related to restrictions upon opportunity imposed upon 'disadvantaged' sections of the community — should be a fundamental element of any theory of spatial behaviour. The concept of revealed preference does not go far enough, since if an individual does not have the opportunity to behave in a certain way, his preference cannot be revealed. This point was reiterated in a review of the methodology by Brie (1976), and a number of additional limitations were suggested. Brie suggested that the technique does not sufficiently reflect behavioural realities since cognitive-behavioural investigations suggest that individuals do not, in fact, choose between as wide a range of spatial opportunities as is suggested by Rushton, while the technique also does not incorporate any random element in choice behaviour. The point is also made that man is a social animal, so that shopping behaviour patterns should not be investigated in isolation from other facets of spatial behaviour, a point which was earlier raised by Eyles (1971) and expressed in his concept of the 'divided man syndrome'. In essence, these criticisms appear to express the view that the approach tends to be far too normative and insufficiently related to behavioural processes. Indeed, there is a striking similarity between the assumed trade-off of the advantages of centre size and the disincentive of distance in a non-explanatory manner in the revealed space preference approach and in spatial interaction theory. Thus, the value of the approach to the study of consumer spatial behaviour can be best summed up in a quotation from Brie (1976) in that it 'merely approximates patterns of consistent choice behaviour in space rather than unveiling preference based laws of spatial behaviour.' An interesting example of the use of the approach in this manner is provided by Lentnek et al (1975) investigating food shopping behaviour, albeit in the inter-urban situation. A comparison of revealed preference structures is made for four areas at different levels of economic development and some interesting behavioural tendencies emerge. It is suggested that food shopping behaviour conforms to a 'dual assignment rule': households living relatively close to a limited range of opportunities exhibit a high probability of visiting the nearest centre; whereas households living some distance from the nearest opportunity prefer shopping in larger places at greater distances. The explanation for this seems to be that if a reasonably convenient opportunity exists it tends to be used, but if a journey requiring the use

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of public or private transport is necessary, then the journey might as well continue until a more specialised centre is reached where there is likely to be a greater range of food and other shopping opportunities. Somewhat analogous behaviour has been noted, although not specified as a dual assignment rule, by the convenience shopping behaviour of high- and low-status households in Leeds (Davies, 1969) and Greater Swansea (Thomas, 1974). It is also interesting to note that the change from the tendency to use the nearest centre for a more distant larger centre increases progressively from 2 miles for Mexico to 12-13 miles for respondents in Michigan in 1968. This reflected a combination of increases in income, personal mobility and the degree of specialisation of food shopping requirements associated with increases in the level of economic development of the sample populations. This suggests a tendency for the behavioural axiom of central place theory to be replaced by the more complex behavioural assumptions of spatial interaction theory as levels of economic development and personal affluence increase. Used in this way the revealed space preference approach to the study of spatial behaviour appears to have some descriptive and comparative analytical value which is capable of providing interesting behavioural generalisations in the future. The theoretical models of shopper behaviour developed in the marketing literature will be examined in a later section, since these usually subsume all three elements of the behavioural approach (theoretical, empirical and cognitive) considered here. The Empirical Behavioural Approach Studies undertaken under this heading provide information that is relevant to the evaluation and improvement of existing theories of consumer behaviour, as well as to the needs of shorter-term practical policy-making. The heading subsumes a rather diffuse range of studies (Bruce, 1974) which tends to reflect a current lack of clearly integrated research objectives. Viewed more positively, it might be suggested that this variety reflects the formative stage of this work and the catch-all title is useful at the moment since the links between the various aspects of this work should be stressed. Nevertheless, a number of emerging foci of research activity already can be recognised and these will be discussed under various subheadings, although the overlapping relationships between the categories have to be borne in mind.

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Trade Area Studies. Many of the studies undertaken under this heading have been associated with the work of Applebaum (1965, 1968) in the USA. Interest is focused on the analysis of the detailed functioning and commercial viability of a store or centre, from information obtained by interviewing shoppers within the centres, or from other information concerning the origins of customers visiting a centre. The central aim of much of this work has been to provide answers posed by questions relating to commercial planning rather than to develop generalisations relating to consumer spatial behaviour. Thus, while the literature which has emerged from these studies provides a rich body of detailed survey method, little of specifically theoretical note results. In fact, Davies (1977) has drawn attention to the lack of a coherent definition of 'trade area' in this literature and its variable use by research workers. Applebaum (1968), for example, has defined a primary trade area as a zone in which 50-70 per cent of the population are likely to be customers, a secondary trade area where the equivalent figures are 20-30 per cent, and a fringe area of 10-20 per cent. The 20 per cent differential between the base of the primary area and the top of the secondary clearly attests to the lack of precision of the concept. Nevertheless, in recent years the methods used in this type of research have been becoming increasingly quantitative. Lord's (1975) attempt to predict shifts in consumer patronage of supermarkets following the entry of a new unit into a system, for example, employs a multiple regression model to examine the possible effect of a number of potential explanatory factors. However, as a result of empirical geographical studies which have developed from this tradition, a number of behavioural generalisations have begun to emerge. There is a tendency, due to the friction of distance, for shopping centres of all hierarchical levels to draw the greatest proportion of their customers from nearby areas, although the higher the hierarchical status of the centre, the wider will be this area. There is also a significant tendency for trade areas to overlap both within and between hierarchical levels (Berry et al, 1963; Brush and Gauthier, 1968). These findings tend to suggest behaviour consistent with the intra-urban version of the gravity model. Recent studies of planned suburban shopping centres have indicated the manner in which these behavioural generalisations are adjusting to changes in the hierarchy of centres. Johnston and Rimmer (1969) demonstrated that two new regional centres in the Melbourne suburbs had significantly wider spheres of influence than the older unplanned centres of similar status, a finding which was broadly replicated by a

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study in the suburbs of Philadelphia (Young, 1975). It was also apparent that the planned centres were developing at the expense of older intermediate-level centres within their spheres of influence, while also beginning to function as partial CBD substitutes. Consequently, it was suggested that new consumer behavioural tendencies were emerging. Local neighbourhood and corner-shop facilities were widely used for convenience goods, the planned regional centres provided a high-order intermediate level which met most normal requirements, while the CBD continued to maintain considerable importance for the highest-order speciality goods. Similar findings emerge from Dawson and Murray's (1973) study of Perth and from Gantvoort's (1971) in the Hague. It is interesting to note that even in Britain, where planning authorities have been generally antagonistic to the development of new regional centres, slightly different but highly consistent findings emerge from the studies of hypermarkets and new district-level centres. (Thorpe etal., 1972; Thorpe and Kivell, 1971; Donaldson and Sons, 1973, 1975). In these cases the impact of the new facilities was felt by the smaller intermediate-level centres near to their scale of operation, while the effect on traditional CBD trading was substantially less. Dawson (1977) cities similar evidence derived from French studies of the impact of hypermarket developments. It may well be that the general tendencies emerging from these studies could result in the formulation of principles which will have wider consequence than the individual, somewhat unique type of study. Studies based upon questionnaire surveys of shoppers interviewed in shopping centres can only provide an indication of patterns of consumer behaviour. The research method can introduce a number of elements of bias into the investigation. Frequent shoppers purchasing relatively small amounts of goods on each visit tend to be overrepresented in the sample. Often, such shoppers tend to live relatively close to the centre and come from the lower-status groups. Conversely, the infrequent, high-bulk purchaser who tends to come further by car may be under-represented in the survey. Some insight into the possible degree of bias introduced into a survey relating to these considerations can be gauged by undertaking cross-tabulation analysis of the data set between an array of characteristics such as the distances travelled, frequency of visit, degrees of allegiance to the centre, social status, mode of transport and the amount of goods purchased on each visit (Thomas, 1977, 1978). The problems associated with a second element of bias are more intractable. Analysis is limited to the shoppers actually using the single

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or small number of centres investigated. Consumers who do not use these centres, but who live in the trade area of the centres under review, are lost to the study and the loss cannot easily be estimated. In essence, while the general extent of the trade area can be estimated, the degree of market penetration of the centre in its different parts is not apparent. Since the degree of market penetration by a centre is critical to its commercial viability, the importance of such information is clear. The only reasonably unambiguous solution to this problem is to supplement the shop-door survey by some kind of systematic sample survey of households living in various parts of the trade area, in order to assess spatial variations in the degree of market penetration. The drawback of such a strategy is the considerable cost in time and manpower relative to the ease of obtaining information from the centre-based interview. It involves approaching potential interviewees at home and, if the questionnaire is of only moderate length, might involve the interviewer in gaining access to the home. This tends to take much longer than the shop-door survey or, more usually, as when home entry is not gained, tends to disrupt a carefully drawn sample framework. Similarly, lack of initial contact creates problems of callback and evening interviewing. For these reasons the household survey has tended to be a very secondary element in trade area studies, although there is no lack of examples of the problems and potential of this type of survey. As early as the mid-fifties Nelson (1958) conducted an intensive home-based survey to determine the potential market penetration of a proposed new supermarket, while Applebaum (1968) reviews other similar work. More recently, the home-based interview survey has been used frequently to supplement the centrebased survey. This device has been used extensively in Britain (e.g. Thorpe and Kivell, 1971; Thomas, 1977, 1978), but examples also occur from the USA (e.g. Hiltner and Smith, 1976). In fact, if such surveys are structured in such a way that adjacent sub-areas which by definition have access to similar shopping opportunities are divided socially (for example, into 'high-status' and 'low-status' types), additional insight can be gained into the functioning of particular centres and into variations in consumer spatial behaviour. Is there, for instance, a significant difference in behaviour demonstrated by the more mobile, the higher-status or the younger sections of the community? Such differences might indicate the differential appeal of a centre to varying sections of the community, or they might have some predictive potential, since it is possible that the lower-status and the older groups might become more mobile in the longer term and

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begin to demonstrate less spatially constrained patterns of shopping behaviour (Thomas, 1974, 1977, 1978). It might be suggested that the potentially superior information obtained from a carefully conducted household survey is increasingly likely to make it an important element in future trade area studies. Considering the cost implications of such a shift in emphasis, it might be further suggested that a stronger element of research effort could be directed to investigate the relationship between centre-based and household-based data in the investigation of the functioning of shopping centres of varying size. If some systematic relationship could be determined, this might have the effect of refining the findings of trade area studies at minimum.additional cost. In addition, such work might also redress the partial imbalance of current trade area studies, which tend to emphasise the unique commercial or planning aspects of each particular study, rather than elucidate more general principles. Aggregate Consumer Behaviour Studies. A second type of householdbased survey of shopping behaviour can be recognised. Such surveys consist of random samples of consumers drawn from throughout the urban areas under review. They tend to emphasise the descriptive aspects of consumer behaviour and attempt to illustrate broad patterns of behaviour and their possible determinants. Attempts to analyse the detailed reasons for particular trip types are less well developed in these studies, since the random spatial distribution of the respondents creates problems for such work. In city-wide sample surveys of shopping behaviour, variability is the prime feature of both the socio-economic characteristics of the population and of the spatial patterns of shopping opportunities available to them. Behavioural variations which emerge might be related to variations in socio-economic characteristics, to variations in shopping opportunities, or to a complex combination of both. Thus, it is usually only possible to describe and to explain tentatively the behaviour variations which occur. It is not possible to isolate the independent effect of specific factors as determinants of shopping behaviour. Nevertheless, studies conducted along these lines have provided a rich source of descriptive information and significant insights into consumer spatial behaviour. A noteworthy example of this approach was undertaken by Davies (1973). A shopping diary for a single week, recording the origin and destination of trips, mode of travel, major purpose, items purchased and shops visited was obtained from a random 1 per cent sample of the residents of Coventry. Journeys for

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convenience and durable goods for each day of the week suggested recognisable patterns. The central area appeared to serve the whole city for durable goods, while also attracting a significant proportion of convenience goods trips. Most of the convenience goods trips were concentrated on the various lower-order centres, and there was some evidence to suggest a limited number of durable goods trips to the district level centres. This information indicated the continued importance of a strong residential location effect upon behaviour, particularly for convenience goods, and a considerable orderliness in the journey to shop: 'Consumers shop either within their immediate surroundings or alternatively go to the nearest largest centre to them.' This led Davies (1973) to support the applicability of the modified behavioural postulates of central place theory rather than those suggested by spatial interaction theory. In addition, exploratory evidence was presented to indicate that variations in the socioeconomic characteristics of the shoppers resulted in considerable deviations from the aggregate behavioural responses. Of particular note were the more spatially constrained patterns of behaviour demonstrated by the youngest and oldest families, by the lower-status groups and by the immigrant community. This suggests the need for attention to be paid to spatial variations in the socio-economic characteristics of residential areas if a comprehensive understanding of intra-urban shopping behaviour is to be obtained. A similar approach has been adopted by work undertaken at the Building Research Establishment in Watford (Daws and Bruce, 1971; Daws and McCulloch, 1974), again using the shopping diary method. This research provides a valuable guide to the problems of using shopping diaries such as the difficulty of maintaining respondent interest for longer than a week and the potential bias of such findings in favour of the more frequent, shorter, but possibly less important, trips. Useful information was provided concerning the types and destination of shopping trips throught the week, and on the importance of frequent top-up convenience shopping trips, usually on foot to nearby facilities, which are distinct from the bulk provision and specialised shopping trips to more distant centres, often by car, during the week-end. Similar work has also been undertaken in North America and some interesting generalisations have been made. There is evidence to suggest that despite widespread decentralisation of service facilities and extremely high levels of car ownership and use, a degree of orderliness in shopping behaviour remains. Brush and Gauthier (1968), working in

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metropolitan Philadelphia, and Holly and Wheeler (1972) in Lansing, Michigan, develop consistent results. It was found that, despite a strong tendency towards overlapping hinterlands at a variety of hierarchical levels, shopping facilities were found not to have lost a local identity, and that a significant distance constraint upon shopping behaviour still remained. The evidence from these studies might be considered to provide some support for the applicability of the behavioural norms of spatial interaction theory for consumer behaviour in North America. Thus, it might be suggested that despite the analytical limitation of the aggregate behaviour studies, they nevertheless provide a considerable amount of information relevant to the development of an understanding of behaviour. Indeed, exploratory studies similar to those undertaken in Watford should be repeated periodically to establish whether any new behavioural trends are emerging which need to be incorporated more systematically into the analysis of consumer spatial behaviour. The importance of such a consideration can be stressed, particularly in Britain, where levels of consumer mobility are currently increasing and where new retail forms and organisations are developing apace (Daws and McCulloch, 1974; Dawson, 1977). Attention has already been drawn (Mottershaw, 1968) to the lack of refinement of trip types in consumer behaviour studies. Most analyses either use the crude definition of trips into 'convenience', 'durable' and 'speciality', or disaggregate down to the level of the individual good or service. These-definitions are equally open to criticism, since they do not necessarily reflect current behavioural realities. Clearly, much geographical work has tended to concentrate upon single-purpose shopping trips. However, it may well be that a more 'holistic' view of consumer behaviour will have to be incorporated into future geographical research. Three areas of investigation might be suggested for further attention: multi-purpose shopping; combinedpurpose trips; and activity management. Multi-purpose shopping describes shopping trips which involve several orders of goods and services, several stores or several shopping centres. Despite the fact that such trips are a significant feature of shopping behaviour, traditional theory has tended to rest on the premiss of single-purpose shopping trips. It is, therefore, incumbent on geographers to disentangle the single- and multi-purpose shopping trips, and to indicate their primary characteristics. Yeates and Garner (1976) suggest that single-purpose shopping trips will be more frequent and over shorter distances than multi-purpose trips, and that the former will most often be concerned with the purchase of convenience items.

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The distinction may well be more complex than this, however, as their analysis only dealt with the number of establishments visited, and not with the number of different goods bought or the number of centres visited. Several planning issues relate to the multi-purpose trip. For example, the relative decline of the corner shop may be due not only to higher local prices of goods, but also to the extra utility to the consumer — in a period of high personal mobility — of being able to accomplish several shopping tasks in a single trip to a neighbourhood cluster. Combined-purpose trips occur when people make trips for more than one purpose - combining work with shopping, recreation with socialising, or personal business with entertainment. Although this combination of trip purpose is increasingly being studied in the literature, the terminology is used in an extremely confusing fashion. The term 'multi-purpose' is widespread — but often used with different meanings; Daws and McCulloch (1974) use 'multi-stage' to refer to trips that consist of a set of linked steps or purposes; Yeates and Garner (1976) prefer the phrase 'combined purpose' when examining trips with both a shopping and another purpose; while in the 1950s, the variant 'multi-purpose' was used by Garrison and others. Yeates and Garner (1976) suggest that 'combined-purpose' trips will be the least frequently undertaken of all shopping trips and will involve the longest distances. Although it is difficult to judge the true extent of combined-purpose trips, the Watford study indicated that roughly a quarter of all trips involve several activities (Daws and McCulloch, 1974). This is corroborated by transport survey data from America which show that from one-quarter (Chicago and Pittsburgh) to one-third (Buffalo) of all vehicular travel involves more than a single step (Hemmens, 1966). A notable finding is that shopping, of all the major activities undertaken by urban residents, tends to interact most strongly with other activities. In the Watford survey, for example, nearly 40 per cent of the journeys that contained at least one shopping element (35 per cent of all journeys recorded) were combined-purpose. Shopping, it seems, is either an extremely important element of everyday tripmaking, or is the least offensive activity to add to other more pressing engagements. Various other aspects of combined-purpose trip-making have been clarified by the Watford survey. For example, people rarely combine more than two shopping trips in one complete journey (those that do are usually housewives), and housewives are less likely than 'other adults' to continue their journeys to include other purposes

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(Bentley et al, 1977). This latter finding almost certainly reflects the fact that housewife decision-making is subject to severe time constraints, and that 'functional' shopping is one means of coping with these problems. Other related findings have come from a study of urban trip-making in the Mid-western city of Lansing (Wheeler, 1972), where it was found that shopping and personal business formed one of three major sets of trip purposes (the other two being business and social). With increasing levels of personal mobility, trip-makers in Lansing are showing a preference for the longer-distance trip to a single-service cluster rather than for a number of shorter trips to spatially scattered nodes. In the light of these trends, traditional notions of 'convenience' may need radical revision, and planners will have to decide whether a polycentric arrangement of service activities is the most acceptable form for cities in the future. Other aspects of combined-purpose shopping activities are not so well known. For example, little is known, despite much conjecture, about long-term trends in 'social shopping'. Nor, despite the important implications for planning, is it fully clear how activity linkages relate to the spatial arrangement of urban land uses. Finally, there is the inevitable problem of definitions. It is relatively straightforward to arrange trips on a continuum which runs from 'shopping only' to 'no shopping' in the following fashion:

Shopping Mainly Only Shopping

Shopping Dominant

Combined Purpose

Other Activity Dominant

Mainly Other Other Only

But in theoretical terms, how does one defend such a scheme? The problem lies in the fact that several variables can be used to determine the relative importance of the shopping and non-shopping components of a given trip, among them duration, money spent, perceived significance and degree of pre-planning. The question of motives is also significant, because it helps distinguish between the senior citizen's seemingly 'shopping only' trip (where equally important social motives are at work) and the busy housewife's 'shopping only' trip (where economy of time and distance is of prime importance). In summary, most of the concepts, knowledge and theories of urban shopping are based on the single-purpose, home-based trip with a single stop, and transportation planning has largely overlooked the multi- and combined-purpose trip in land use and transportation projections (Wheeler, 1972). As the authors of the Watford activity

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study point out, 'the total activity patterns of people in time and space provide . . . a more nearly complete basis for study than do . . . land use or transportation considered separately.' Further, they assert that the study of activity linkages, in the form of 'journey initiation and continuation is more appropriate for studying urban travel patterns than is analysis of individual trips' (Bentley etal, 1977). Activity management is a broader concept than combined-purpose trip-making, the latter being only the most explicit part of the individual's 'activity management process'. However, when one attempts to interpret this process and to adopt relevant variables for analysis, an immediate problem of methodology arises. A costaccounting approach is clearly unacceptable, since it would lead to almost intractable problems of reducing different activities to a common monetary base (Adams, 1972). The most popular current alternative seems to be to treat activity management as a timebudgeting problem, and to use time as the unifying variable across the range of activities undertaken by the individual. As Cullen and Godson (1975) put it: 'since activities are not bought and sold like goods in a market-place, the only realistic indicators of people's priorities are the time distributions associated with each.' In recent years, a large body of time-budget literature has grown up around this central idea (Bell, 1973; Anderson, 1971), building on the innovative work of Sorokin and others in the 1930s (Sorokin et al, 1939). However, this was of limited relevance to geographers and planners concerned with activities in space as well as time (Gutenschwager, 1973) and it fell to Hagerstrand (1970) and others to add this spatial dimension. By these means the techniques, concepts and vocabulary of 'space-time budgets' were formulated, and an area of study was ushered in which is currently undergoing a considerable vogue within geography (Thrift, 1977a; 1977b). Although the explanatory value of a space-time budget approach to human behaviour is still debated, its advantage to consumer behaviour studies lies in its promise of being able to relate shopping activities to all other activities in a unified fashion. In particular, it underlines the idea discussed elsewhere in this chapter that people are not completely free in their selection of activities. Hagerstrand and his colleagues have argued that the individual faces three important sets of constraints in his attempts to juggle with the time and space resources at his command: capability constraints (stemming from his biological needs and capabilities), coupling constraints (based on the need for individuals, tools and materials to be orchestrated in time and space for

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group-related activities), and authority constraints (based on limitations of access imposed by society) (Hagerstrand, 1970). Of more immediate relevance to consumer studies in urban areas is the work of Cullen and his associates on the daily activity patterns of staff and students of part of London University (Cullen et al, 1972). This, too, draws attention to the importance of constraints on behaviour, and suggests that: the decision of where to shop at 3 p.m. is no longer taken in the context of a purely theoretical action space surrounding the individual's residence but is taken in terms of a highly specific timespace prism anchored between the individual's location at that time and his next forecast commitment (Cullen and Godson, 1977). In this study, individual activities during the working day are often of two types: the 'structuring' episode, for example, work during the body of the day and relaxation activities during the evening, and the 'punctuating' episode which usually takes place in the locational vicinity and on the temporal periphery of structuring episodes. Shopping is a prime example of the second type, and in the London University sample shopping typically took place in short periods, rarely more than 40 minutes in duration, even for durable goods, on the way home from work in the evening. This pattern reflects 'an obvious solution to the overlap of a 9.0 a.m. to 5.0 p.m. working day in the institution and a 9.0 a.m. to 6.0 p.m. working day in the service centre' (Cullen, 1972). It remains to be seen whether the trend towards shorter working hours and evening opening of shops will promote weekday shopping by full-time workers to the status of a 'structuring episode'. The root concept of space-time budget studies, then, is that activity choice is not a completely free process, and that there are strict interdependencies between various activity choice decisions over time. Shopping is particularly subject to the constraints imposed by the individual's participation in other major activities. From a methodological point of view, the space-time budget approach has placed great emphasis on the examination of behaviour sequences, and some attempts have been made to understand them by the use of various graphic techniques, such as Hagerstrand's 'time-space prism', and statistical methods, such as Cullen's auto-covariance, crosscovariance and transition-probability analysis. More effective pattern extraction techniques are still required, as are

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thoroughgoing analyses of the individual's perception of his constraint set. Until these are available, the ideas of space-time budgets are likely to remain stimulating without contributing to the mainstream of consumer behaviour studies. They undoubtedly have a role to play, for it is clear that consumer behaviour should be placed in the context of all other behaviour if its spatial, temporal and other characteristics are to be fully understood. Factors Influencing Shopping Behaviour. To overcome the problems of analysis associated with the aggregate behaviour studies, this category has been developed, particularly in Britain. Emphasis is placed upon the clarification of the influence of particular factors on behaviour in order to provide additional insight into the findings suggested by patternoriented investigations. One of the unifying features of human geographical research in recent years has been the emphasis placed on ecological analysis. According to this perspective, the individual behaves in a manner which is influenced by his cultural, demographic, economic and geographical milieu (Huff, 1960). With some degree of success, recent empirical studies have shown that variables such as income, sex, age, occupation, ethnic affiliation and geographic location appear to be associated with differences in observed patterns of shopping behaviour (Davies, 1968, 1969; Horton and Reynolds, 1969; Huff, 1971; Murdie, 1965; Nader, 1969; Potter, 1977b; Ray, 1967; Raybould, 1973; Thomas, 1974). However, despite the attractiveness of these results, geographers are facing up to the fact that these traditional variables may not be the only ones in operation, that there may well be other intervening variables which have yet to be identified, and that as society evolves, the explanatory power of these variables may fade. Most of the ecological-style research has concentrated on the combined influence of variations in income, social status and personal mobility. A research design has usually been adopted whereby survey areas are designated which have access to similar shopping opportunities and, as far as possible, only differ with respect to the factors being investigated. Davies's study of Leeds (1969) and Thomas's (1974) in Greater Swansea produced generally similar results for convenience goods shopping. In both cases higher-status groups tended to travel further to higher hierarchical levels than their lower-status counterparts, a fact directly related to the lower level of car availability and usage demonstrated by the latter group. Evidence was also presented to suggest that social status had a greater influence than personal mobility

Urban Consumer Behaviour

45

alone on the observed behavioural variations. Grocery shopping trips were disaggregated for car-owning and non-car-owning households within each of the two status categories. The within-group significance of car ownership was apparent, but the greater importance of social class than car ownership as an explanation of between-group variations was demonstrated. Similarfindingshave been noted in Stockport by Potter (1977b). It appears there that higher-status respondents used a greater variety of centres at greater distances from their homes than low-status respondents, and that social class differences were more clearly associated with this variation than car availability. It was also interesting to note in both earlier studies that for higher-order durable shopping the CBD dominated shopping trips irrespective of variations in social status and mode of transport used. The related factor of occupation is another widely used independent variable in consumer studies, for it is recognised that job type is a key means of access to society's desirable resources of power, wealth and prestige. Through these, various other resources, including consumer goods and services, can be obtained. The chain of causation is typically assumed to be: occupation -+ income -» consumer behaviour. However, there are signs that this set of relationships is breaking down. First, the relationship between class and income is becoming increasingly blurred, for example with the erosion of pay differentials between skilled and semi-skilled British workers over recent years, and the steady increase in wages among the blue-collar labour force (Klein, 1965). In addition, even within the same occupational or income category there are significant regional differences in the proportion of money available for consumption purposes, since the proportion of earned income demanded by other essentials such as housing, journey to work, etc., also varies (Pahl, 1970). It might be more appropriate, therefore, to concentrate less on occupation or income as explanatory variables, and place greater emphasis on the constraints on spending which manifest clear regional and intra-urban variations. As Pahl (1970) rightly argues, we must disaggregate occupation by other variables (such as religion, commuting times and ethnicity) in order to discover the limits of consumer choice. It has already been demonstrated, in the context of leisure time studies, that there are often greater differences within occupational strata than between them in people's access to leisure opportunities (Wilensky, 1961). Blanket use of class categories or occupational groups would therefore seem to be of declining relevance in explaining variations in consumer behaviour in a spatial context.

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Urban Consumer Behaviour

life-cycle stage has also been used as an explanatory variable in a number of studies of residential mobility and consumer behaviour. One problem, however, has been the lack of agreement between different researchers in the number, class boundaries and terminology of lifecycle stages used in their analyses. For example, Lansing and Morgan (1955) opted for six stages in their analysis of American family finances (Bachelor, Newly Married Couples, Full Nest I, Full Nest II, Empty Nest and Solitary Survivor), Clavan (1969) settled for five (Ego-centred, Pair-centred, Family-centred, Pair-centred and Egocentred), while J. Walter Thompson (1968) produced a sixfold classification of young housewives aged 16-34 years (single and unattached, single and planning marriage, married with no children, married with eldest child under 1 year, married with eldest child between 1-5 years, and married with eldest child over 5 years). Several problems attach to the use of life-cycle stage in explaining differences in consumer behaviour. Chisnall (1975) points out that it is often difficult to disentangle other variables, particularly social class, and that simple segmentation of families into life-cycle groups ignores other important distinctions such as the number of incomes being generated by the family members. Thus, despite a long-held belief that life-cycle differences are a significant differentiating factor in consumer decision-making (Clark and Foote, 1955), there are grounds for reappraising its relevance in geographical studies. Katona (1960) has shown, for example, that differences in purchase rates of various lifecycle groups do not explain short-range fluctuations in the purchase of durables, while several studies have shown that life-cycle differences are becoming more muted due to recent changes in the socio-economic circumstances of consumers. One of the more penetrating studies to test the latter idea was an interview-based investigation of 1,056 women over the age of 20 in Cleveland, USA (Rich and Jain, 1968). Results showed that many shopping behaviour patterns for these women, including shopping frequency, store preference, interest in fashion and downtown shopping, were almost identical between different life-cycle and income groups. The authors concluded that contemporary changes in society, among them increasing discretionary income, leisure time, opportunities for further and higher education, social benefits and movement to suburbia, were rapidly eroding the traditional distinctions between groups of consumers and that there was a need to reconsider these variables in future market segmentation exercises. This finding has an important bearing on cross-cultural comparisons of consumer behaviour, for it suggests that countries and even regions and cities

Urban Consumer Behaviour

47

which differ in their socio-economic conditions may not be directly comparable in studies that use life-cycle stage as a discriminating variable. The effects of variations in age structure on shopping behaviour have also been investigated, although the evidence is sparse and inconclusive. Thomas (1974) suggested that an imbalance of families of pre-school age might be partly responsible for unexpectedly high allegiances to local facilities for convenience goods. Similarly, Potter (1977b) shows the constraining influence of pre-school children, but also suggests a similar mobility constraint for those over 60 years of age. It may well be that the effects of variations in age structure are of lesser importance than the other factors discussed here. Nevertheless, there appears to be scope for the more detailed investigation of the influence of this factor. Thus, it might be concluded that variations of the socio-economic characteristics of consumers significantly influence aspects of their spatial behaviour. This suggests that advances in the understanding of intra-urban consumer behaviour are likely to require the disaggregation of behaviour patterns with respect to social differentiation in the city, a consideration which also has consequence for the application of spatial interaction models. Constraints on Shopping Behaviour - the Disadvantaged Consumer. The behavioural variations associated with particular social characteristics of groups of people noted in the early empirical studies of shopping behaviour have in recent years given rise to increased interest in constraints on behaviour. The general perspective of these studies is that the shopping behaviour of particular sub-groups of the community, such as the lowest social classes, ethnic or other minority groups are restricted to whatever local facilities exist due to low income, restrictions on personal mobility or a combination of both factors. It is also considered that, due to the commercial overtones of earlier research and the limited economic significance of these groups, policy decisions have largely ignored them so that their situation continues to deteriorate. In these circumstances it is considered by some researchers (Eyles, 1971) that greater attention should be paid to such groups so that planners might be able to take fuller account of their needs in the future. Two broad groups of constraints on behaviour have been recognised: those that are based on environmental inadequacies such as poorly located or poor-quality shops, restricted trading hours, infrequent or irregular bus services; and those related to consumer attributes such as

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Urban Consumer Behaviour

lack of private mobility, low income, old age or physical handicap. Together, these constraints affect the frequency of shopping trips and reduce the flexibility with which various retail outlets can be used. A number of issues in this field are currently being investigated, although much of this work is still in its early stages. Particular attention has been paid to the differential levels of accessibility to alternative shopping facilities enjoyed by different groups. It is increasingly recognised that people's access to urban facilities is largely a function of the transport modes available to them. It is also recognised that two major groups of the population have emerged in recent years: those with regular use of a car, and those without (Mitchell and Town, 1977). Although cities like Los Angeles have as many as 83 per cent of their families with at least one car available (Falcocchio and Cantilli, 1974), this is by no means the norm, even in other North American cities. In San Francisco, for example, some 30 per cent of adults have no immediate access to a car, despite this being an extremely affluent urban area (Foley, 1972). Elsewhere, too, similar patterns of transport 'deprivation' prevail. This has led to the use of the phrase 'the transportation poor' in studies of the not inconsiderable section of the urban population who, for a variety of reasons, have no regular access to motorised personal transport. In British urban areas the level of 'transportation poverty' is generally around the 45 per cent level (Mitchell and Town, 1977), though this rises to 74 per cent in at least one inner London borough (Hillman ef at, 1972). Who, then, are the 'transportation poor', and what effect does the lack of car mobility have on their shopping behaviour? Typically, these people include the elderly (less than 5 per cent of women in Britain over the age of 65 hold driving licences), the young (26 per cent of Britain's population fall below the legal age limit for holding a full driving licence), the poor (car ownership varies directly with social class and income levels), women (of the population of Britain eligible to hold a driving licence, 64 per cent of men do so while only 21 per cent of women do so) and the handicapped. In addition to these groups, there are also households who own a car but one which is frequently unavailable for shopping trips and the not inconsiderable number who deliberately choose not to drive. The impact of car availability on spatial behaviour patterns is often dramatic (Koutsopoulos and Schmidt, 1976). Access to welfare facilities is reduced considerably (Wheeler, 1974; Morrill et aL, 1970; Earickson, 1970), and in rural areas especially, lack of car mobility has

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49

become increasingly serious in the face of continually declining public public transport services (Clout, 1972; HMSO, 1961; Thomas, 1963). In terms of shopping behaviour, the availability of a car has a direct impact on both the number of shopping trips undertaken within a given period of time, and also on the distance travelled to shop (Mitchell and Town, 1977). Lack of access to a car over any length of time also leads to a gradual reduction in an individual's awareness of shopping opportunities, leading to a suppression of preferences and a reduction in the number of certain types of shopping trip (Eyles, 1971). This is borne out by data collected in a survey of the travel behaviour of handicapped and elderly people in Washington, DC, which revealed a latent, i.e. unfulfilled, travel demand of over 70 per cent due to travel, and other, problems (Falcocchio and Cantilli, 1974). It was estimated that there would be a likely increase of the order of 82 per cent in the number of shopping trips amongst those included in the survey sample if these constraints were removed. This feature is also substantiated by the Isle of Dogs shoppers in Eyles's study, 39 per cent of whom did not leave the island to shop, despite the poor local facilities which dissatisfied 66 per cent of the total sample. According to Eyles, a group of shoppers had emerged with 'absolute preferences', i.e. people who through lack of opportunity perceived they had no shopping choice and even no need of choice. These were all elderly persons who suffered from low personal mobility and an inability to pay the relatively high public transport fares to get off the island. The accessibility issue has generated considerable interest in the British literature. Currently in Britain, approximately 50 per cent of households have access to a private car, but this averagefigureobscures much greater variations between the car ownership rates of different social areas. Many middle- and upper-status residential neighbourhoods exhibit figures around 85 per cent, while low-status housing areas rarely exceed 40 per cent. This is the index of mobility which has often been used in empirical studies of shopping behaviour, but according to Hillman and Whalley (1977) even this obscures much more extreme variations in the potential mobility of shoppers. The household car ownership rates are significantly modified, as shown in Table 1.1, by age and sex differentials relating to vehicle licence holders. Clearly the younger and older age groups are potentially far less mobile than the middle age range and this is particularly so for women who are more likely to be concerned with shopping. In fact, restrictions on the spatial activity patterns of women with young children are currently being explored in detail within the context of the 'gender-role' constraint by

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Urban Consumer Behaviour

Tivers (1977), although the evidence relating to spatial activity patterns has not yet been presented. Table 1.1: Vehicle Licences Held by Age and Sex (percentages) (Britain)

Men Women

17-20

21-29

30-64

65+

All

34

71

72

30

61

6

32

25

4

21

Source: National Travel Survey, 1972-3.

In addition, potential use of cars is considered to be further deflated by their lack of availability for most of the day during the week due to their use in the journey to work for approximately 75 per cent of car-owning households. This restriction is not necessarily redressed by public transport. While Hillman and Whalley (1977) report that 84 per cent of the population lives less than a five-minute walk from a bus stop, services are considered poor by at least a third of bus users due to unreliability, and a third of both mothers with young children and the aged reported significant difficulties with using the services. Also, the alternative of walking to a shopping centre over distances of greater than a quarter of a mile poses considerable problems for a significant proportion of the population, particularly for the purchase of bulky convenience goods. Hillman and Whalley's (1977) work was principally concerned with travel to recreational facilities, but a number of their conclusions are of interest in the current review. In the first instance, they suggest that future studies of spatial behaviour should take far more cognisance of the effect of variations in the potential mobility of travellers rather than apply a rather crude surrogate of mobility such as the car ownership rate of the survey areas. Clearly, this conclusion has considerable merit and this issue has been explored further by Banister (1977). In addition, they draw the policy conclusion that the development of a small number of large recreational facilities creates significant elements of disadvantage in their intended trade areas for 'low-mobility' groups. Thus, they support the alternative idea of developing relatively numerous, spatially dispersed facilities. Again this conclusion has merit, although the further implication is, of course, that the numerous dispersed facilities will not be able to offer the degree of specialisation which might be offered in a larger entity.

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51

However, this potential conflict can be resolved on its merits in relation to the particular area to which it is applied, and possibly some kind of compromise designed to cater for the specialist while minimising the spatial disadvantage of low mobility groups if possible. In a later paper, Hillman and Whalley (1978) extend their conclusions to the location of services in general, such as health facilities, entertainment, education and shopping. They support preventive planning to maintain relatively numerous dispersed facilities for all these functions. While agreeing with the need to consider variations in personal mobility more fully in studies of spatial behaviour, and with the general sentiment that local facilities should be maintained to serve 'low-mobility' groups, it seems that they have not undertaken sufficient detailed behavioural investigation to extrapolate their conclusions with such conviction to such a wide range of services. To take just the case of shopping, the implication of their findings is that small local stores should be maintained wherever possible and that, conversely, very careful consideration should be given before larger facilities such as superstores or hypermarkets should be allowed. Such a cautionary note is intuitively appealing and it may well be of practical value. However, there is the danger that such a conclusion could be construed as a blanket condemnation of new forms of retailing and this is particularly likely in Britain, where such forms have in the last 15 years been treated with extreme caution by planning authorities at all levels. Such a result would seem inappropriate considering the limited information relating to shopping behaviour reviewed by Hillman and Whalley (1978). Clearly, the general contention that the fewer the local shops which exist, the greater will be the number of spatially disadvantaged shoppers, is correct. However, they provide no indication of how many local shops would have to close before the situation deteriorates 'significantly' in sample residential areas. Obviously, there is scope for further work here, although it is interesting to note that Guy (1977) has recently presented a method designed to measure loss of accessibility following the closure of local shops in Reading, where local shops are numerous. This indicated that a drastic decline in accessibility did not result until the hypothetical closure of a considerable number of shops. Similarly, Hillman and Whalley's shopping behaviour data were derived from the National Travel Survey of 1972-3, which is far too crude a source to allow the development of detailed policy proposals. For example, much of the

52

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support for local facilities is derived from the fact that 56 per cent of shopping trips are made by pedestrians and only 28 per cent by car. This immediately raises a number of questions. Are these trips merely for convenience goods? If some of them are not, then they are irrelevant to a discussion relating to the provision of local shopping facilities. Shopping trips would appear to be dominated numerically by pedestrian access, but do they dominate the quantity of goods purchased to the same degree? The additional implication is that, given the choice, most people prefer to walk to nearby shopping facilities to obtain provisions. This is an overstatement of behavioural realities, even by many who would be defined as low-mobility consumers. Many empirical studies of shopping behaviour indicate a degree of dissatisfaction with either the range of goods or the prices charged in local facilities by significant proportions of low-mobility consumers who adopt various strategies, such as shopping when the car is available or using less convenient public transport to travel further afield than the nearest centre. In addition, there seems to be an implicit assumption in the work that local shops and the new larger forms of retailing are essentially alternatives. While it is clear that the development of new large retail firms is likely to affect adversely existing small-scale facilities, some of the evidence quoted earlier suggests that the effects are most strongly felt by the traders in smaller intermediate-level centres rather than by the smallest centres or isolated shops. In fact, Dawson (1977) notes the recent increase in importance of small stores and suggests that they complement rather than compete with the larger units by providing for the less mobile elements of the community as well as offering a top-up function for the users of larger centres. Thus, while the general ideas expressed in the work of Hillman and Whalley are worthy of additional investigation and their intentions admirable, the policy implications of their conclusions must be considered tentative until some of the issues raised here have been resolved. When the use of bus services for shopping trips is considered, it is found that the frequency of use tends to be lower for households having access to a car, and this tendency is repeated in every income group (Mitchell, 1977). This paper goes so far as to suggest that: 'in general, buses are not used from choice, but as a best alternative when a car is not available.' The implication is clear: those households who for one reason or another do not have regular access to a car are compelled to use bus services for shopping trips, despite any aspirations to do otherwise.

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53

New forms of retailing, particularly in peripheral urban locations, have done little to improve retail access for the 'transportation poor'. Large, integrated shopping centres of the hypermarket type tend to cater strongly for the car mobile shopper, and this is also true of comparison goods centres such as the Brent Cross regional shopping centre in north-west London. Although it was anticipated in the 1960s that some 40 per cent of Brent Cross shoppers would use public transport facilities, only about 13 per cent actually do so. Survey evidence reveals that about 85 per cent of all shoppers using bus transport to and from the centre did not have access to a car on the survey day (Shepherd and Newby, 1978), and this highfigureseems to confirm the opinion of Mitchell that buses are not normally used by choice for shopping activities, but only as a best alternative when a car is unavailable. Elderly peoplefigureheavily in this category, the proportion of over-65s in the bus-user sample being three times as large as in the full shopper sample. However, this is partly explained by the existence of concessionary fares for the elderly on London Transport bus services feeding the Brent Cross shopping centre and underlines the significance of positive planning action in alleviating the problems of the 'transportation poor'. The alternative solution is to improve the retail system itself, an idea that has been taken up by members of a symposium held at the University of Buffalo in 1970 (Andreasen, 1972). A second category of studies concerned with constraints is associated with the restricted patterns of shopping behaviour demonstrated by ethnic minority groups in the city. The distinction between this and the last group of studies is not clear cut, since most ethnic minorities tend to be of low social status. Thus, the relationship between low income and low levels of personal mobility is also relevant here. The additional distinctiveness of this group of studies is that, whether the minority is spatially concentrated because of discriminating practices by the host society or has a stronger voluntary element based upon the needs of culture reinforcement in the early stages of settlement, such groups tend to have culture-specific consumer demands and preferences, particularly for convenience goods and services. Examples of such groups are the residents of the Black ghettos of the USA and the Commonwealth immigrants of inner-city zones in Britain. The structure of shopping facilities in such areas soon tends, like the other parts of the city, to reflect the nature of consumer demand (Davies, 1973) and a particular subsystem of shopping facilities can be identified. A considerable literature relating to this phenomenon

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Urban Consumer Behaviour

exists in the USA and interest is also being generated in Britain. The early studies in Chicago of Berry et al (1963) and Pred (1963) suggest that the retail structure generally reflects the low-income characteristics of such communities, but, in addition, upwards of 25 per cent of retail outlets relate to demands which are particular to the Black areas. A considerable number of more recent studies (Rose, 1970; Andreasen, 1971; Wallin et al, 1975) in a variety of cities in the USA describe the familiar recurring pattern of small inefficient shops, higher prices, lowquality goods, fewer services and a general air of dilapidation in the retail sector. Studies of consumer behaviour and consumer attitudes to available shopping facilities are, however, less numerous and much work needs to be done to highlight the problems and potential of retailing in such areas, and to determine whether planning intervention is necessary or desirable. Nevertheless, some descriptions of consumer behaviour in such areas exist and some general tendencies have been noted. Caplovitz's (1967) study of the urban poor in New York provided some evidence on the behaviour patterns of the Black population. It appeared that the majority of shopping, particularly for convenience goods and services, was constrained to the ghetto area and this was most apparent for the more recent Puerto Rican immigrants. However, a tendency was noted for younger, higher-income respondents, and those who were long-time residents of the area, to display rather wider patterns of behaviour. Similar findings are reported by Sturdivant (1973) relating to the Watts district of Los Angeles in 1969, where highly constrained behaviour patterns were found for convenience goods. However, significantly wider patterns of behaviour were noted for durable products, which led Sturdivant tentatively to suggest that Black consumer behaviour was mainly a reflection of limited income and mobility rather than colour per se. An additional interesting tendency is also suggested by Wallin et al (1975). It appears that in Denver, Black consumers had a very negative image of the retail businesses operated by Black businessmen in the ghetto area. This results in the rather paradoxical situation that the retail establishments operated by Black entrepreneurs were the most dilapidated and most economically marginal, a situation which precludes the advance of the businessman developing as a stabilising feature of the community. Information from Britain is even more restricted, although a section of Davies's (1973) study in Coventry is relevant and also suggests the dependence of the low-mobility immigrants upon local low-order shopping facilities for most of their purchases.

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55

Thus, it might be concluded that the evidence to date relating to the study of the constraints upon behaviour of the disadvantaged consumer has only developed to a limited degree and further work would seem appropriate. Nevertheless, these studies serve to underline the conclusion of the previous section that advances in the understanding of intra-urban consumer behaviour are likely to require the disaggregation of behaviour patterns with respect to socio-spatial differentiation in the city. Before leaving the question of choice and constraint, a suggestion can be offered for future empirical study. Geographers have until now been concerned mainly with overt behaviour. Complementary studies are required of latent behaviour in the sense proposed by Falccochio and Cantilli (1974), and of non-behaviour in the manner suggested by Eyles (1971). Only when the incidence of these types of non-behaviour is fully researched, and their relationship to social and environmental constraints established, will planners be fully able to assist in improving shopping opportunities for all sections of the community. Consumer Behaviour Within Shopping Centres. The majority of studies previously referred to relate shopping behaviour to the socio-economic characteristics of consumers and their spatial displacement from alternative shopping opportunities. However, it is increasingly being considered that the choice of shopping centre, and detailed spatial behaviour exhibited while shopping, might be attributable to the microspatial facets of shopping destinations. Conversely, the detailed manner in which shoppers use a centre can have a considerable influence upon the commercial viability of particular sites. Such considerations are most important for the larger, higher-order shopping centres which are likely to have a complex pattern of shopping facilities and associated transport termini. The lack of integration of pedestrian flows, transport termini and shop locations in old centres or comprehensive redevelopment schemes is likely to result in 'dead space' and virtually unlettable shop units. Such a result has a significantly detrimental effect on commercial or public investment, while at the same time creating adverse environmental problems. Consequently, recent interest has been generated in investigating consumer behaviour within shopping centres in an attempt to identify the determinants of recurrent patterns of behaviour, the attitudes of consumers to different spatial arrangements of facilities and to identify principles which might result in the most efficient and satisfying spatial organisation of functions. Behavioural studies have to be considered, however, within the

56

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context of a knowledge of the detailed spatial arrangement of functions within centres and the reason for such distributions. Interest in this field can be traced back to the work of Nelson (1958), who suggested principles which promoted clustering of some establishments and functions and the mutual repellence of others. Considerations of actual and potential accessibility to pedestrian flows, cumulative attraction and compatibility of functions and the minimisation of competition were all considered important in this respect. Later studies have been concerned to identify recurring patterns of spatial affinities between functions in city centres to provide information which could be used to test and refine principles such as those suggested by Nelson. Amongst this work have been studies by Getis and Getis (1968) in the USA and by Varley (1968) and Davies (1973) in the UK. This work is still in a formative stage and no firm principles have yet been developed. Partly this reflects the lack of data sources related to detailed retail location which are sufficiently refined for comparative analysis over space and time, although recent suggestions that in Britain the Goad shopping centre plans provide just such a source might well redress the deficiency (Rowley and Shepherd, 1976; Shepherd and Rowley, 1978). Nevertheless, while this emerging body of literature is highly relevant to, and should increasingly be integrated with, studies of shopping behaviour within city centres, it has not provided direct insights into spatial behaviour. Customer linkages between establishments or functions can only be inferred from recurrent spatial associations and such inference is open to misinterpretation. Consequently, interest has recently been developed in the direct investigation of shopper behaviour within centres. Early examples of such studies, which were partial elements in much wider investigations, are provided by Boal and Johnson (1965) in Calgary and Davies (1973) in Coventry. However, a more comprehensive example of this approach was recently provided by Bennison and Davies (1977) for Newcastle upon Tyne. Information was obtained from an analysis of pedestrian flows and this was complemented by a questionnaire survey of shoppers interviewed in a variety of locations in the city centre. An attempt was made to illustrate the functional linkages between stores and shopping streets and to determine the principal influences upon shopper behaviour. The research is still in progress, but interim conclusions suggest the primary importance on recurrent behaviour patterns of large magnet stores and the secondary, but significant, importance of trip termination points at bus stops or car parks. This appears to represent a productive line of

Urban Consumer Behaviour

57

research which promises some interesting results. Other relevant research tends to concentrate upon more specific aspects of behaviour. Bishop (1975), for example, examines the attitudes of the public, business interests, the public transport authorities and various organisations in Portsmouth to the pedestrianisation of a main shopping street and concludes that beneficial commercial and environmental effects resulted which were positively acclaimed by a substantial majority of the shoppers and organisations interviewed. Bishop suggests that success of the scheme is related to the fact that it was well integrated with natural pedestrian routes, shopping nodes and transportation termini. These findings could form the basis of additional investigations of similar schemes, with the possibility of developing general principles for the improvement of pedestrianisation in city centres. A somewhat different approach was adopted in a study undertaken in Erlangen, Germany (Meyer, 1977). In this case an attempt was made to determine whether shoppers perceived distances within the shopping centre accurately. Respondents were asked to evaluate the distance of three points which were equidistant from the centre and the patterns of errors were analysed to determine whether any recurrent patterns contributed to an understanding of spatial behaviour. Variations in accuracy were found not to be related to educational, age or social class differentials. Instead, length was consistently underestimated in the portion of the central area which was nearest to the shoppers' residence and in the parts which were most preferred or most used. Conversely, distances in the parts of the centre which were displaced from the sector on the usual access route from the residence or which were less preferred and less used tended to be significantly overestimated. It was suggested that these results were directly related to the differential degree of familiarity that shoppers had with the various parts of the town centre. This was associated with their habitual use of some parts and their relative avoidance of others. Whether the differential perceptions of distance were determined by behaviour or were the result of behaviour was not distinguished in the study. Nevertheless, the findings have interesting implications for spatial behaviour, since it might be suggested that the perceptual images noted were likely to stabilise habitual shopping patterns rather than promote experimental variation. This is a contention which might be worthy of further examination. Although the literature on this subject is still relatively sparse, some interesting findings are emerging from the study of shopper behaviour within centres and it may well be that further work will provide

58

Urban Consumer Behaviour

information useful to the planning and design of the spatial structure of shopping centres. Three major research issues, geographical, methodological and planning, seem likely to be central to this work. First are geographical issues. It has been considered that many of the findings of research into pedestrian spatial behaviour apply to the behaviour of shoppers in shopping centres. Favourite themes of pedestrian research include pedestrian density (Lewis, 1974), walking speed and congestion (Older, 1968), length of walk trips (Hart and Thompson, 1968; Mitchell, 1973), pedestrian/vehicle interaction (Smeed, 1968) and pedestrian accidents (Cohen etal, 1955; Grayson, 1975a, 1975b). However, while it is undeniable that most pedestrians in shopping streets are engaged in shopping-related behaviour, the findings of pedestrian research have only indirect relevance to the micro-spatial behaviour of shoppers. Studies which investigate spatial aspects of shopping behaviour in their own right are exceptional, one such exception being a Road Research Laboratory report comparing shopping times in different urban environments (Jacobs, 1968). Since research into geographical aspects of shopper behaviour within shopping centres is only at an embryonic stage, we offer here a series of questions which might serve as an agenda for future investigation. (1)

(2)

(3) (4)

(5)

What routes or paths do shoppers take within shopping centres and do shoppers follow minimum-distance or minimum-effort paths amongst shops visited? Zipf (1949) suggested that since foot-travellers were faced with impediments of several sorts, their selection of a path would 'be determined by the particular dynamic minimum in operation'. This notion remains untested. What tactics do shoppers use to reduce the lengths of their shopping paths? There are several possibilities: dropping certain shop visits from the itinerary, repeated crossing of streets and careful pre-planning. Are shops visited in particular sequences, and how do such sequences relate to the spatial layout of shopping centres? Can different types of shopper be identified from the spatial characteristics of their shopping behaviour? How relevant, for example, is Howard and Sheth's (1969) threefold typology of consumers (limited problem-solvers, extensive problem-solvers and routinised response shoppers) in classifying shopping behaviour patterns? How far is habitual shopping behaviour related to detailed

Urban Consumer Behaviour (6) (7) (8)

(9)

59

knowledge of a shopping centre? What are the characteristics of search behaviour amongst shoppers? How do shoppers acquire and use environmental clues, and how do they react to environmental constraints? How aware are shoppers of environmental hazards and irritants such as road traffic and noise, how is this awareness related to shopper age, trip purpose and other variables? What relationship exists between the shopper's entry-point (car park, bus stop, tube station, etc.) and subsequent behaviour? For example, does the shopper decide which stores are to be visited and then choose the most appropriate entry-point, or is the first available entry-point used and shops and connecting route selected accordingly? Preliminary evidence from Dorking and Brecon strongly suggests that selection of entry-points has a significant bearing on subsequent behaviour (Shepherd, 1977).

Methodological issues arise because the interpretation of shopper micro-behaviour cannot proceed without an adequate record of that behaviour. However, geographers have not yet developed techniques of observation and recording that are appropriate to the study of microbehaviour. The traditional instrument used for acquiring a record of past spatial behaviour is the questionnaire. People are known to have extremely poor powers of recall, and various accuracy-testing surveys show that errors are to be expected even when events are traumatic, as in the reconstruction of motor accidents by police, or of deep emotional significance to the respondent, as in studies which use mothers' memories to reconstruct infant histories. Exploratory studies indicate that even if shoppers are interviewed immediately after completing a shopping trip, their report of the shopping sequence is often flawed through the omission and mis-sequencing of events (Shepherd, 1977). These errors can be detected by comparing the results of interview surveys with direct observation of the shoppers' behaviour. Direct observation of detailed shopping behaviour is also fraught with difficulties. First, it is extremely labour-intensive, the typical price of a single response being of the order of two to three hours of observer time. Secondly, there are ethical objections to the act of following a shopper for an extended length of time without his knowledge or consent. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, it is doubtful whether direct observation of overt shopping behaviour alone

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can capture all the nuances of behaviour and motivation that comprise the shopping act. Several alternatives suggest themselves in the light of these problems: time-lapse cine-photography, as used in a Road Research Laboratory study of bus/pedestrian interaction (Dalby, 1976); electronic bugging; participant observation; and protocol analysis. Finally, there are problems to be resolved in defining an appropriate notation to record the micro-geographic behaviour of individuals. lines on small-scale plans will suffice to outline the routes followed by shoppers in a shopping street, but how are other behaviours such as window-shopping, shop-entering and street-crossing to be recorded, and how are the appropriate time intervals to be attached to each event? Perhaps labanotation, as used by choreographers, Aresti's notation for aerobatic figures, or the time-space diagrams developed by Hagerstrand and his colleagues might prove to be useful in this respect. There are several important planning issues which relate to the micro-behaviour of shoppers. Shopper safety is high on the list of priorities. One major problem faced by planners is that traffic volume has no appreciable impact on the proportion of shoppers that cross a street (Fruin, 1971). Similarly, research into child accidents shows that children pay little attention to road traffic before a crossing is attempted (Grayson, 1975a). Solutions include traffic management, education and pedestrianisation. The special needs of the disabled shopper also demand the planners' attention, action being needed to improve his information level, ease of mobility and means of access to retail opportunities. For shoppers generally, there is a pressing need to improve the quality and the quantity of shopping-related information. This information is of two broad types: locational and route-based. The former tells the shopper where a particular service is located, the latter tells him how to get there from his current location. Several issues need to be resolved, including the division of responsibilities between local authorities and retailers for providing appropriate information, the selection of optimal sites for such information and the undertaking of research to define the information needs of different types of shopper, among them the habitual shopper, the limited search shopper and the first-time shopper. Other planning concerns include the optimal location of entry-points, such as car parks and public transport stops, and the assessment of the impact of new developments on shopping behaviour, such as the pedestrian severance effects of new urban motorways (DOE, 1974). Common to all such issues is their

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dependence on adequate sources of information about patterns of consumer behaviour. This fact has been recognised by the Department of the Environment, in the UK, which recently sponsored research into the improvement of the pedestrian environment (TEST, 1975). The Cognitive Behavioural Approach This approach concentrates upon the perceptual aspects of consumer decision-making which derive from Isard's (1956) concept of individual space preferences. The basic assumption is that the most important stimulus to consumer decision-making is the perception of available alternatives. Thus, an understanding of the perceptual basis of the decision-making process is considered essential to an understanding of consumer shopping behaviour. This forms the central theme of the cognitive behavioural approach, but an inherent difficulty has created problems for subsequent research. It is extremely difficult to distinguish whether an individual's perception of alternative shopping opportunities determines behaviour or is the result of spatial behaviour caused partly by intervening stimuli (Downs, 1970). Probably the relationship is interactive. Consequently, most recent research has been less ambitious in attempting only to provide information which might be used to show the relationship between the image of the shopping environment and behaviour. A number of distinct research areas can be noted. The Learning Cycle. Several consumer models were developed by economists in the 1960s in order to overcome the rather rigid assumptions of the 'rational man' model of human behaviour. Prominent among these was the idea developed by Katona (1960, 1963,1964) that the major categories of consumer behaviour could be placed in a time-ordered framework, to produce a behaviour cycle which is illustrated in Figure 1.3. The first time a shopping trip has to be made it requires genuine decision-making; on subsequent occasions the behaviour is converted to a routine, from which 'impulse' buying can be seen as a minor deviation. Katona lists the conditions under which genuine decision-making is likely to occur, and these are sufficiently clearly stated to enable geographical testing. According to Katona (1964), genuine decision-making vis-a-vis products occurs in the following circumstances: (1) (2)

for major or relatively rare expenditures; due to unsatisfactory past experience, especially

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Figure 1.3: The Katona Model of the Behaviour Cycle Genuine Decision Making II

-fc^

J Routine 1 Behaviour

TT.

^^

Major Interruption

1

i

i

(3) (4) (5) (6)

disappointment of past expectations; the appearance of new products and/or the first purchase of a product; due to awareness of a difference between one's own customary behaviour and that of an important reference group; under the influence of strong new stimuli or precipitating circumstances; related to certain personality traits, often associated with education.

To these we can add: (7) (8)

subsequent to thwarted aspirations, for example a store being out of stock of a particular product line; resulting from boredom with the same brand, product, shopping centre, store, etc.

However, even a cursory examination of Katona's behaviour cycle reveals an uncomfortably abrupt transition between decision-making behaviour and routine or habitual behaviour. In a later analysis of consumer behaviour, Howard and Sheth (1969) provide an alternative framework that fills this gap. Where Katona suggested only two major categories of behaviour, Howard and Sheth suggest three: (1)

Extensive Problem Solving (EPS), in which the buyer knows neither the product class nor the brand;

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63

Limited Problem Solving (LPS), in which the buyer knows the product class but not the brand; Routinised Response Behaviour (RRB), in which the buyer knows both the product class and the brand.

They further suggest that there is a clear relationship between the three types of decision process and the 'order' of the good involved. Thus, EPS is significant for low-frequency purchases, while RRB is significant for high-frequency purchases. The sequential relationship between these three behaviours is shown in Figure 1.4. Figure 1.4: The Howard and Sheth Model of the Behaviour Cycle EPS

LPS

H

RRB

Interruption

There are several other such conceptualisations in the marketing literature, but they say little that is of direct interest to the geographer. There have been some attempts by geographers to establish a similar conceptual framework of consumer decision-making based on a learning cycle', the most familiar being by Golledge (1967, 1969) and Brown (Golledge and Brown, 1967). These authors consider that the market decision process can be likened to a learning procedure whereby a newly arrived household in a city initially looks to its immediate neighbourhood to meet its shopping requirements, but eventually widens its search before ultimately developing habitual response patterns. This procedure is considered an important facet of shopping behaviour in the USA, where 1 in 5 households move every year, with 40 per cent of the moves being greater than 8 kilometres (Lloyd, 1977). Therefore, it is considered that explanations of consumer behaviour should subsume a range of behaviour from initial search to habitual responses. However, recent work in this field has not been extensive and is still at an exploratory stage. Although there are many empirical shopping studies that highlight the importance of recurrent shopping behaviour (Marble and Bowlby, 1968), there has been little

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attempt to collect evidence for the transition from exploratory to customary behaviour, despite the fact that the model is now included in several standard geography texts (Cox, 1972). More recently, Hudson (1975) reiterates with a greater degree of refinement some of the notions of search behaviour contained in the earlier articles. He suggests that the development of search behaviour is related to two main factors. First, the inhibiting cost of distance, which initially restricts patterns of search to facilities near to home and work until search is gradually extended to a maximum beyond which costs are perceived as excessive. Secondly, differential attraction of different locations which, to reduce uncertainty concerning the outcome, creates a bias in favour of larger centres or national concerns. The process continues until, with increased knowledge, a shift occurs to positive features considered attractive to the shopper such as price levels or quality. These notions were empirically tested with data relating to 89 university students in Bristol and, after a sophisticated statistical analysis, the contentions are provided with a measure of support. But the empirical evidence is restricted and the emphasis of the article is on the development of analytical technique rather than on the development of behavioural norms which can be easily related to other work or to policy proposals. Other relevant findings are included in an article relating to an explanation of variations in the spatial information fields of urban consumers in Hamilton, Ontario (Smith, 1976). A step-wise multiple regression model indicates the primary importance of length of residence in an area as an 'explanation' for 49 per cent of the variation in the numbers of grocery stores known by respondents. In the current context, interest lies in the fact that search learning has a significant impact on knowledge levels up to as long as five years of residence, after which a degree of saturation occurs. However, the relationship between perception and overt behaviour was not investigated and this restricts the relevance of the findings. Similarly, a study by Iloyd (1977) provides interesting results. Attention is focused on a sample of 75 movers in Columbia, South Carolina. It appeared that shopping behaviour following migration was modified in an ordered manner. Use of lower-order facilities near to the former home were broken first and higher-order facilities last, a reflection of search learning associated with the new residential location. Also, not surprisingly, the further the distance moved, the greater the degree of modification which occurred. An alternative approach to the learning cycle has been taken by Shepherd and Newby (1978) in their analysis of the early performance

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of the Brent Cross regional shopping centre in north-west London. Using shopper survey data for the first eight months of the centre's operation, they were able to identify aggregate shifts in shopper behaviour both towards the new shopping centre, and also in terms of previously patronised centres. Soon after the centre had opened, a large proportion of shoppers were seen to be exploring its facilities on an experimental basis, often travelling a considerable distance to do so. Eight months later, shoppers had more or less sorted out their preferences and were beginning to exhibit a stable pattern of shopping behaviour which now included patronage of the new centre. Over this time period, there was a relative contraction of the intensive catchment area around the centre, a remarkable increase in the proportion of repeat shoppers at the centre (from one in twenty at the outset to one in three eight months later), an increase in the average amount of time spent at the centre and an increase in multi-purpose shopping that included food purchases. It can be fairly claimed that within a year of opening of one of the largest shopping centres in Europe, a large proportion of the potential customers in the north-west region of London had already developed a routinised response to its shopping opportunities. Since change and mobility are permanent features of Western society, it could be argued that exploratory shopping behaviour and not habitual behaviour should be the norm. While this is a beguiling hypothesis, there is no generally available body of evidence to permit its testing. Indeed, the learning cycle continues to be a neglected area of study, despite its many interesting geographical ramifications. The same is true in marketing, where: 'despite the importance of learning processes in buyer behavior . . . and recent efforts to clarify formal theories of market learning . . . relatively little empirical research on learning in natural settings has been done' (Andreasen and Durkson, 1968). Several lines of investigation suggest themselves, for example the speed of learning in different retail environments, the relationship of various stages in the learning cycle to the consumer's social characteristics and the relationship of learning to order of goods and to various levels of mobility. Empirical research is needed into learning by individuals as well as into the innovation/adoption cycle of new retail centres. Many research methods are available for this kind of study, including cross-sectional surveys (Andreasen and Durkson, 1968), longitudinal studies (Shepherd and Newby, 1978) and panel surveys which are common in market and opinion research. The ubiquity of change in

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modern society offers great scope for study in rapidly changing urban environments, in new towns, in new housing estates or new shopping developments, and in regions where there is high residential mobility. There are the inevitable complications, however, arising from the fact that many changes are piecemeal (for example, store replacement or new stores in shopping centres) or are phased through time (for example, where a person changes his workplace some time in advance of changing his place of residence), and that parts of even routine shopping trips involve spatial search and genuine decision-making. Some interesting findings are emerging from this work. However, investigation in this field remains in a formative stage and studies which stress partial aspects of the influence of search learning on consumer behaviour still appear to be the norm. There is, as yet, little indication of the relative importance of this line of investigation to the development of a comprehensive understanding of shopping behaviour. Spatial Information Fields. Studies undertaken under this heading are primarily concerned with measuring the range of shopping opportunities known to consumers on the assumption that there may be a consistent relationship between the spatial information field and the centres used. Early work by Horton and Reynolds (1969, 1971) was not specifically related to consumer behaviour, but it has considerable relevance. It attempted to measure the part of the urban environment which was most familiar to individuals designated action space. This was considered likely to encompass the majority of recurrent spatial behaviour designated activity space. An attempt was also made to determine whether definable sub-groups of the urban population shared a similar knowledge of the urban environment. An individual's action space was conceptualised as being formed by the interaction of the social, economic and psychological attributes of the individual with the objective spatial characteristics of the urban environment. It was suggested, however, that the most important single influence upon an individual's environmental perception was his residential location and as a result, an individual's familiarity with the urban area was likely to decline with distance from his residence, while social interaction at the residential site tended to reinforce this spatial familiarity bias. Therefore, it was hypothesised that individual images and the resultant action spaces are to a very large extent shared by groups of people in close geographical and social proximity. This was tested by illustrating the aggregate action spaces of the residents of two socially contrasting areas in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a strong measure

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of support was provided for the working hypotheses. Respondents were most familiar with the sector of the city which included their home area and the central business district, while familiarity declined markedly with distance from the home. However, the overall familiarity levels of the middle-income group were significantly higher than those of the lower-income group. Furthermore, the former group demonstrated a moderate degree of familiarity with the major suburban shopping plaza, although it was located in the opposite sector of the city from their homes. This evidence suggested a positive relationship between the areal extent of action space and socio-economic status as well as a strong residential location bias in the patterns of familiarity. Very similar findings were presented in a series of articles relating to the residents of Stockport by Potter (1976a, 1976b, 1977a, 1977b). Again, spatial information fields were found to be sectoral in shape, focusing on the residence of the consumer and including the central business district. Also, the higher-status respondents were significantly more familiar with a larger number of shopping centres distributed through a wider section of the city (Smith, 1976). In addition, a directional bias was demonstrated whereby a significantly higher degree of familiarity occurred with centres located in a downtown direction from the consumer's home, a feature which was earlier noted by Lee (1962, 1970) as 'Brennan's Law' and by Thompson (1963) as the notion of 'subjective distance'. It was suggested that this results from a focal bias in residents' mental maps towards the town centre associated with the greater number of trips for a variety of purposes which are likely to have been undertaken in that direction. The additional interest in this series of articles is that shopping behaviour patterns were closely associated with the spatial information fields described. Other studies serve to validate the foregoing conclusions as well as providing some additional information. Parker's (1976) study of consumer behaviour in Dublin describes very similar spatial information fields to those of Horton and Reynolds (1971), while Hanson's (1977) concepts of 'cognitive opportunity set' and 'cognitive level' are analogous to the notion of action and activity space. Hanson attempts to measure the knowledge levels of food stores known to residents of Uppsala, Sweden in terms of the location of the stores and their interior attributes. It was found that most individuals possessed information about only a small proportion of the stores and a rapid distance decay of knowledge levels occurred within two and a half kilometres of home. Also, respondents possessed much more information relating to the location rather than to the interior characteristics of the stores. This is

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an important point, since Hanson suggested that familiarity with store location could be used as an index of the respondent's spatial information about the city in general, while familiarity with store interiors better identifies the set of grocery stores from which shopping destinations are chosen. In addition, a similar directional bias of knowledge levels towards the central business area was also noted. While some consistent findings are beginning to emerge from these studies, no attempt has been made to decide whether individual consumer behaviour is determined by space perception or whether behaviour creates the perceptual images noted. Nevertheless, the relevance of studies of spatial information fields to an understanding of behaviour is apparent. A knowledge of individual or group spatial information fields provides an indication of the area in which consumer search behaviour is likely to be constrained. Consequently, research into the definition of such fields and their relationship to behaviour must remain a research interest which is likely to be of relevance to studies of consumer spatial behaviour in general. Perception of Shopping Centres. Just as the consumer's knowledge of the relative spatial attributes of shopping centres within urban areas is considered to be important in determining subsequent behaviour, so it is increasingly considered that consumer perceptions of the internal characteristics of shopping centres influence the choice of centre visited and the detailed manner in which shoppers use a centre. Shoppers' perceptions of the attractions of a specific shopping centre have been comprehensively investigated by Downs (1970). An attempt was made to describe the structure of the perceptual range of a downtown shopping centre, specifically excluding the influence of distance between the consumers and the centre, in order to determine how the relative attractions of shopping opportunities are likely to be evaluated. Such information was considered an essential prerequisite for model- or theory-building. A semantic differential questionnaire analysis was undertaken and the results analysed using principal component analysis. It was concluded that the image of the centre was a complex construct composed of at least eight cognitive categories. This study initiated an interesting line of research, but further investigations are necessary to probe the possibility of additional cognitive categories and the stability of images in relation to social sub-groups in the city and to various types of shopping centre in order to consolidate Downs's work and to establish useful generalisations. However, such additional work appears not to have been undertaken

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and many issues remain unresolved. For example, in an earlier attempt to develop a 'behavioural conception of retail image', Kunkle and Berry (1968) presented an argument against the use of the semantic differential and for the use of unstructured questions in this type of research, while suggesting the appropriateness of at least twelve elements of retail image associated with three department stores in Phoenix, Arizona. Nevertheless, a similar approach has been suggested which, although rather wider in scope, is capable of utilising concepts developed from both perceptual and empirical studies. This has been termed the study of 'trip motivations' which Davies (1973) considers might provide additional insights into the determinants of shopping behaviour and have some relevance for the development of theory- and modelbuilding. Respondents are provided with a list of possible reasons for shopping in a particular location, including attributes of the centre, of the shopping trip or any other reason considered important by the researcher. Respondents are required to indicate any of the reasons they considered important in their selection of a shopping centre. The data are aggregated for the sample population and indicate the most important factors presumed to be determinants of behaviour. Many of the studies already reviewed in the empirical behaviour section have used this simple device to explore the determinants of recurrent patterns of behaviour and a number of factors appear to be emerging consistently. For example, accessibility, in association with competitive or qualitative service attributes of alternative centres, appears to be the most important determinant of consumer choice. Also, accessibility appears to be an important influence upon convenience goods shopping, while the attributes of centres tend to be stronger determinants of higher-order shopping trips. In addition, not unexpectedly, whatever the nature of the trip, accessibility and competitiveness appear to be more important to the lower-status groups than to their middle- and high-status counterparts. Similarly, a number of recent studies which have a stronger, explicitly perceptual orientation appear to be reaching similar conclusions. Wagner (1975), for example, studying grocery shopping behaviour in Green Bay, Wisconsin and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, provided respondents with 29 statements in order to measure the determinants of shopping behaviour. The data were factor analysed and the importance of minimal travel effort, the availability of modern supermarkets and the possibilities for social interaction were identified as important determinants, the relative importance of which appeared to vary amongst social sub-groups. Pacione (1975), investigating

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higher-order shopping trips in the Tayside sub-region, indicated that over 78 per cent of the variance associated with the use of a centre was associated with an index of shopping centre attractiveness in close association with distance travelled, while Parker (1976), studying grocery shopping behaviour in Dublin, suggested that the dominant motivational influences were convenience of access, competitive prices and the qualitative aspects of the shops chosen. An interesting study from the marketing literature is also worthy of note in this context. Mackay and Olshavsky (1975) interviewed a sample of shoppers using eight large supermarkets in Bloomington, Indiana, and the familiar assemblage of prices of goods, distance to the units, size of the stores and quality of merchandise emerged as most important to the choice process. However, it is interesting that cognitive distance to the stores correlated more closely with preferences and behaviour than did map distance. This is an observation which might bear closer examination (Mackay, 1973a, 1973b). Another group of studies, found largely in the marketing literature, has considered the qualitative images of stores developed by consumers. For example, Rich and Portis (1964) suggest that among Cleveland and New York housewives, the images of suburban stores tend to be less distinctive than those of downtown stores. The idea of the 'store personality' is a common research focus in the marketing literature (Mittelstaedt etal, 1971), but Downs (1970) has warned of the dangers of assuming a simple causal relationship between an individual's perception of alternative shopping opportunities and subsequent shopping behaviour. A major role of these studies in geography is as a corrective to the tendency to overstate the spatial dimensions of consumers' images of their shopping environment. It is well known in the marketing field that consumers invariably build complex images around wow-geographical attributes. As Martineau (1957) puts it: 'any store has a larger personality, a total image of many more meanings in the consumer's mind than that of a place for day-to-day transactions.' Downs, too, has noted that it is store attributes and not centre images which are uppermost in many consumers' minds as they consider alternative shopping opportunities. An alternative approach might be to use the shopper categories of the 'economic', 'personalising', 'ethical' and 'apathetic' developed by Stone (1954). Spatial differences between such consumer types might well be explained in terms of their images of different stores and their home locations within the urban system. But the geographer must be wary of expecting easy generalisations in this field, since information-

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gathering techniques and analytical tools are still in their infancy. The cognitive behavioural approach has also been applied in an attempt to clarify the detailed manner in which shoppers use the internal parts of a centre. Again, this approach cannot be entirely separated from the empirical studies relating to consumer behaviour within shopping centres. The different manner in which distance is perceived within a shopping centre and the suggestion that the images noted might lead to the stabilisation of habitual shopping patterns has already been discussed in the earlier section (Meyer, 1977), but little additional information specifically relating to this topic exists. It may well be that the growing literature relating to the construction of 'mental maps' of city centres initially associated with Lynch (1960), but more recently developed by Downs and Stea (1973), and Pocock (1976) will prove of value if the relationship between spatial image and shopping behaviour is to be clarified further. Thus, it might be suggested that these studies have gone some way towards clarifying the determinants associated with the choice of shopping centre. However, their research methods vary considerably, as do the strength of their conclusions, while many of the empirical studies were not principally undertaken to clarify these factors. Consequently, more work is necessary along the lines noted, to include a stronger element of replication before the generalisations suggested here can be considered to be firmly established. Aggregate Models of Consumer Behaviour. Despite the fact that most of the cognitive behavioural approaches to the study of consumer behaviour are primarily concerned with clarifying partial aspects of the decision-making process, few studies have attempted to develop more comprehensive models designed to explain spatial decision-making. Notable in this respect is work by Cadwallader (1975) relating to choice of supermarkets by 53 households in west Los Angeles. After reviewing work relating to the determinants of consumer decision-making, it is suggested that the primary factors which should be included in a model are attractiveness of the stores, distance of consumers to the stores and the amount of information which the consumers have of the stores or: P =

I M L V1)

which is a simple modification of the gravity formulation where: Pj is the proportion of consumers patronising store i,

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Aj Di

is some measure of the attractiveness of the store i, is some measure of the distance to store i from the consumers' homes, is some measure of the information generated by store i.

Ij

Unlike the gravity formulation, the parameters in the model were derived from the perceptions of the consumers. Attraction was measured in terms of variables obtained from a pilot study checklist of the criteria considered most important to the respondents. Broadly, these variables were the familiar competitiveness and quality of service which were specified in terms of speed of checkout service, range of goods, quality of goods and prices. The three different distance measures of scaled perceptual distance, time distance and real distance were used in order to determine that most closely related to behaviour. Information was measured in terms of the proportion of respondents who were aware of the different stores. It was found that the form of the model which used the scaled perceptual distance provided a close approximation of actual choice behaviour. This was closely followed by the variant which used timedistance. Both these performed significantly better than either the form using real distances or the simple gravity formulation. This was an interesting experiment and, like some of the studies quoted earlier, demonstrated the seemingly close link between an individual's perception of the environment and overt behaviour, although the direction of the explanatory link is still not clear. Also, the author claimed for the model 'good predictive capacity', by which he meant that it provided a close approximation to the actual behaviour of the group studied. There appears to be a strong element of circular argument here, since the model parameters were established by and for the group whose behaviour was 'predicted'. In this instance the model is descriptive, not predictive. The model can only be predictive if it is used successfully to determine the choices of another group which has a different distribution of spatial opportunities available to it. Such a test of predictive capacity does not appear to present insurmountable difficulties, but its absence restricts the value of the model to the particular group of consumers studied. A conceptually similar experimental model has been proposed by Hudson (1976). Again, the consumer's mental models of the retail environment were used as input to a model of aggregate behaviour and tested against observed behaviour patterns for the same group, in this instance the grocery shopping habits of 89 Bristol University students,

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from a diary record of ten weeks' duration. After obtaining the diary data, 26 of the respondents were interviewed to specify their perceptual models of the retail environment in terms of individual shops by using the Repertory Grid methodology (Hudson, 1974). Nine shop attributes were considered important to the choice of shop by over 50 per cent of the respondents and, when these were ranked in order of importance, price level and distance to home emerged on average as the two most important influences on choice. However, for a reason which is not entirely apparent, distance from the shops to the university was also included in the derived model. This model, like that of Cadwallader, is admitted by the author to be essentially descriptive of an existing situation. This is not considered a disadvantage by Hudson since the study is seen as essentially exploratory. However, while the approach contains interesting innovations in methodology, it appears to raise far more problems than it resolves. For example, the low level of 'explanation' of shop choice, in the absence of a convincing explanation, casts considerable doubt on the methodology adopted and raises further doubts as to whether it is ever going to be possible to model complex behaviour decisions at the micro-level of the individual shop. Or does this reflect operational difficulties associated with the variables included in the model? In addition, the greater explanatory power of the shopping centre form of the model introduces the paradox that the choice process is most validly explained at the level of subjectively constructed mental models of individual shops, yet, in aggregate behavioural terms, is best described, if not predicted, in terms of the size and location of shopping centres (Hudson, 1976). It may be that consumers react to environmental opportunities in a different manner to that implied by the Repertory Grid methodology. Thus, the explanatory constructs derived from such an analysis may bear a rather nebulous relationship to behavioural realities. Possibly, the broader level of analysis included in Cadwallader's (1975) study is more appropriate to the modelling of consumer behavioural realities and a potentially more fruitful line for further investigation. Obviously, the cognitive behavioural approach to the modelling of shopping behaviour has a long way to go before meaningful explanatory models are derived, although a number of interesting approaches and questions have been raised in the literature.

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From the preceding discussion, it is apparent that the emphasis of the cognitive behavioural approaches are still at a relatively exploratory stage, concentrating upon partial aspects of shopping behaviour. Nevertheless, some of the perceptual aspects of consumer decisionmaking have been clarified significantly in recent years and these appear capable of being integrated with some of the alternative approaches to the study of spatial behaviour. In addition, explanatory attempts have been made to develop more comprehensive models of behaviour and these appear to warrant further investigation. The Marketing Approach to the Study of Consumer Behaviour Studies in the marketing literature concerned with the spatial behaviour of consumers have already been included in the earlier sections. However, the field of consumer behaviour in the marketing literature is much wider than these studies suggest. In fact, a considerable number of books reviewing the field of consumer behaviour in marketing have been published in recent years (Hanson, 1972; Engel, Kollat and Blackwell 1973; Ward and Robertson, 1973; Markin, 1974; Foxall, 1977). Most of the literature reviewed in these works comes from North America. The approaches and methodology of this work derive largely from a combination of psychology, sociology and economics. The attention of most of this work is fundamentally different from that already reviewed for several reasons. First, it focuses on the determinants of the decision to buy and on the influences upon the resulting choice of product, rather than on the determinants of the behaviour of the consumer in space. In fact, the geographical aspects of consumer behaviour are barely mentioned explicitly in these books. Recurring themes include the influence of individual cognitive structures on choice of product, the importance of learning theory, the information processing capabilities of consumers, the influence of group dynamics and role theory, as well as the construction of economic models. Secondly, one section of this literature seeks to integrate ideas drawn from a wide variety of fields, and to build comprehensive models of consumer decision-making based on a mixture of ecological, behavioural and cognitive theories. The literature is replete with such models of consumer decision-making, usually developed by business academics for expository or pedagogical purposes. An early example of such a model, which stresses the importance of

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attitudes to consumer behaviour, is provided by Andreasen (1965) (Figure 1.5); while a rather more comprehensive model is offered by Nicosia (1966) to suggest critical stages in the consumer's decisionmaking process (Figure 1.6). An even more comprehensive model, which elaborates the potential determinants of behaviour further, is that of Howard and Sheth (1969) (Figure 1.7). This deals with consumer behaviour in terms of rational choices influenced by the individual limits of information, learning and cognitive processing capabilities. After reviewing these early models Engel, Kollat and Blackwell (1973) offer their own 'multimediational model' of consumer behaviour in an attempt to specify all significant influences on consumer behaviour (Figure 1.8). Simply expressed, the model specifies the various stimuli to behaviour. These stimuli are then filtered through the mediating processes, such as the psychological make-up of individuals, their information processing capabilities and the constraints to which they are subject. Only then does purchasing result. The philosophy of such models is summed up by Zaltman (1965): 'a customer's mind moves through a series of stages before he makes a purchase decision . . . as a rule, the movement from initial awareness to adoption is not instantaneous; there are a number of intermediary stages.' This is not the place to provide a detailed description and critique of these models, as this has been done at length in several places in the business literature (Pellemans, 1970; Zaltman et al, 1973; Chisnall, 1975; Tuck, 1976). Nevertheless, the common characteristics of these models can be summarised as follows: (1) (2) (3)

(4) (5)

(6)

their origins are academic with as yet few marketing practitioners having taken them up; they embody notions such as motivations, attitudes and learning derived largely from the psychological literature; they reflect the model-building school of the 1960s when the computer encouraged the construction of elaborate models of human behaviour; they deal with the purchase of goods and services rather than the selection of stores, shopping centres or towns; their view of the decision-making process is an algorithmic one, as witnessed by the prominent place given to flowchart representations; they are essentially normative, despite taking some of their constituent sub-models from empirical behavioural research;

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