Multipurpose shopping behaviour at planned suburban shopping centres: A space-time analysis

There is a continual interest in research on multipurpose shopping (MPS), because it provides a further extension of rational decisionmaking, whereby consumers who combine shopping activities reduce the time and cost of travel. The literature describes the importance of this type of shopping for infrequent trips to higher order centres (Bacon, 1984) or MPS constructed around convenience, supermarket, or comparison trips (West, 1993). A study of MPS at a range of planned suburban shopping centres (PSSCs) in Sydney, Australia during 1988/89 endeavoured to relate these hypotheses to results from a space-time differential consumer-trip model (Baker, 1994). The standardised number of MPS consumers is shown to form a substantial quadratic relationship with centre scale. The model predicts positive and negative states of MPS. An investigation of the shopping patterns within the data set shows the 'negative' MPS is based around the supermarket visit (supporting the West hypothesis). This strategy is adopted both by low mobility and by high disposable income groups within a shopping-centre hierarchy. 'Positive' MPS occurs for shifts in trip purpose, where comparison shopping (such as, for gifts or clothing) is the fundamental construct behind the multipurpose trip. This study shows that distinctly different socioeconomic groups can have in common an MPS strategy independent of centre scale, and it is argued that these groups are using this strategy as a mechanism to minimise the total effort in the-shopping cycle.