Spatial Consumer Behaviour in Small and Medium-sized Towns

Abstract

Van Leeuwen E. S. and Rietveld P. Spatial consumer behaviour in small and medium-sized towns, Regional Studies. Small and medium-sized towns are often recognized as important components of the rural economy. This paper focuses on the current function of small and medium-sized towns in providing retail services to local households in five European countries. Furthermore, it analyses the spatial shopping behaviour of these households. It appears that towns are still important places for shopping: more than half of the purchases of households living in town or the direct hinterland are bought in town.

Van Leeuwen E. S. et Rietveld P. Le comportement géographique du consommateur dans les villes petites et moyennes, Regional Studies. Les villes petites et moyennes sont souvent considérées comme d’importants rouages de l’économie rurale. Cet article porte sur la fonction actuelle des villes petites et moyennes comme pourvoyeuses du commerce de detail aux ménages locaux dans cinq pays européens. Qui plus est, on analyse le comportement commercial géographique de ces ménages. Il semble que les villes sont toujours d’importants endroits où on fait les courses: plus de la moitié des achats des ménages qui habitent les villes ou l’arrière-pays immédiat se font dans les villes.

Comportement commercial Villes Analyse géographique Choix discret Faire les courses au dehors de la ville

Van Leeuwen E. S. und Rietveld P. Räumliches Verbraucherverhalten in kleinen und mittelgroßen Städten, Regional Studies. Kleine und mittelgroße Städte werden oft als wichtige Komponenten der Wirtschaft im ländlichen Raum anerkannt. In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir die momentane Funktion von kleinen und mittelgroßen Städten hinsichtlich des Anbietens von Einzelhandelsdiensten für lokale Haushalte in fünf europäischen Ländern. Darüber hinaus wird das räumliche Einkaufsverhalten dieser Haushalte analysiert. Es hat den Anschein, dass es sich bei den Städten nach wie vor um wichtige Einkaufsorte handelt: Mehr als die Hälfte der Einkäufe von Haushalten, die in der Stadt oder im unmittelbaren Hinterland leben, werden in der Stadt getätigt.

Einkaufsverhalten Städte Raumanalyse Discrete Choice Auswärts einkaufen

Van Leeuwen E. S. y Rietveld P. Comportamiento espacial de compra en ciudades pequeñas y medianas, Regional Studies. Con frecuencia se reconoce que las ciudades pequeñas y medianas son componentes importantes en la economía rural. En este artículo analizamos la función actual de las ciudades pequeñas y medianas de cinco países europeos en cuanto a sus servicios minoristas a hogares locales. Asimismo analizamos el comportamiento espacial de compra en estos hogares. Parece ser que este tipo de ciudades todavía son centros importantes de compra: más de la mitad de las compras de personas que viven en ciudades o directamente en el interior se hacen en las ciudades.

Comportamiento de compra Municipios Análisis espacial Elección discreta Compras fuera del centro

Keywords:

• Shopping behaviour
• Towns
• Spatial analysis
• Discrete choice
• Out-shopping

JEL classifications:

• D12
• R12

Acknowledgements

The work contained in this article was supported financially by Habiforum, for which the authors gratefully acknowledge. Habiforum is a Dutch network organization that connects many experts who are working in the field of spatial planning. Furthermore, the authors would like to thank Professor Frank van Oort, University of Utrecht, for his constructive remarks.

Notes

The information contained in this paper was drawn from the MARKETOWNS project funded by the European Commission under the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development (Contract Number QLRT-2000-01923). The project involves the collaboration of the University of Reading (UK), the University of Plymouth (UK), the Joint Research Unit INRA-ENESAD (France), the Agricultural Economics Research Institute LEI (the Netherlands), the Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland), and the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (Portugal).

These vehicles are mostly cars.

This share is fairly high because of a relatively large group of farmers in the database who for most of the time work close to their residence.

Distance to the nearest place with a shop of considerable size in the zone concerned. For grocery shopping, a shop of considerable size was set at a floor space of 60 m², and for fun and goal shopping it was 160 m².

That is, the floor space of shops in the nearest place with a shop of considerable size in the zone concerned.

Brown (1993) looked at rural community satisfaction and attachment in mass consumer society, and found that community satisfaction is primarily affected by length of residence. In this analysis, Brown also included age, which was not significant. In many studies, community satisfaction is seen as an important variable for in-shopping (for example, Pinkerton et al., 1995). However, Brown did not find a significant relationship with in-shopping.

However, the bivariate correlation is only 0.47.