The location pattern of retail facilities and consumer behavior are closely interrelated. On the one hand, if consumers prefer to shop at a central commercial district rather than at suburban shopping centers, the city center retail sector would become more prosperous than suburban retail sectors. On the other hand, the introduction of a new shop category such as convenience store would lead to the change of consumer shopping behavior, which, in turn, would change the location pattern of retail establishments. Thus the investigation of how consumers of different generations allocate their shopping trips among different kinds of shop categories becomes quite important to figure out the future of retail environment.
With this in mind, this paper aims to clarify the characteristics of daily shopping behavior of Taipei's consumers. More specifically, we first classify consumers into three generations: under 20s, 30s to 40s, and above 50s. Next we categorize the kinds of shops into the following 7 classes: department store, suburban shopping center, specialty store, supermarket, convenience store, neighborhood shopping street, and market. Then we picked up seven typical commodities: fresh foods, foods, home electric appliance, household utensils, personal belongings, street clothes, and home clothes.
In our survey on consumer behavior at different store categories in Taipei, 2002, we conducted questionnaire interviews for randomly drawn shoppers at two shopping malls near city center. In the questionnaire, the respondents are asked how often they go shopping to buy each commodity, how much they spend per shopping trip of each commodity, and what kind of store category they most often visit to buy each commodity.
From responses to these questionnaire items, we analyze how consumers of different generations allocate their shopping trips and expenses among different kinds of shop categories without distinguishing the kinds of commodities. Findings are as follows. Consumers under 20s allocate their daily shopping trips equally to several shop categories such as supermarket, convenience store, and market. However, daily shopping trips of 30s to 40s and above 50s are concentrated in the market category. As for the allocation of the monthly expenses to shop categories, consumers under 20s and 30s to 40s allocate the largest portion of their expenses to the department store category while those above 50s to the market category. Thus preferences under 40s is said to be oriented most to the department store while those above 50s to the market.
