Although a number of studies have been made on consumer shopping behavior, they can be divided into two basic groups. One of the groups has primarily investigated the formation of trade areas from the viewpoint of consumers, and sought to construct new postulates which modified previous ones on consumer shopping behavior based on central place theory. Another group, not immediately linked to central place theory, attempts to make clear the nature of consumer shopping behavior itself, and to examine the influence on consumers of the socio-economic characteristics of individuals of households as consumers, and the changing commercial environments of the region concerned.
This study, taking the viewpoint of the second group, aims to clarify quantitatively the relationships between several socio-economic characteristics of households and their shopping behavior. Kukisaki-mura in Ibaraki prefecture was selected as the study area (Fig. 1).
To obtain data on consumer shopping behavior, a questionnaire was carried out at Kukisaki junior high school. The households who had second grade students in the school in the municipality were selected as the sample of the study. The number of questionnaire sheets were 275 and the number recovered were 182. This number corresponded to 3.9% of the total number of households in Kukisaki-mura.
The contents of the questionnaire were composed of two parts; the characteristics of households and their shopping behavior. Five variables (year of inflow, pre-address, the occupation and workplace of household head, and the number of cars owned) were selected as indices showing the characteristics of households. The items on shopping behavior included the name of store and its place name to which consumers usually journeyed to purchase the eight goods listed below: bread, meat, and liquor as lower order goods, electric appliances and underwear as middle order goods, and furniture, clothes, and gifts as higher order goods.
The study considered consumer shopping behavior, mainly focusing on where consumers chose to buy specific goods, and measured the size of relationships between the characteristics of individual households and their shopping behavior, by using Hayashi's Quantification Theory-II.
Table 2 shows the frequency of the use of transportation for purchasing eight goods. Although the percentage of‘car only’showed high rates for all goods, high rates also appeared for ‘on foot’ and‘by bicycle’ for lower order goods and ‘by train’ for higher order goods.
Table 5 shows the distance of shopping trips by goods. The greater both average and standard deviations of shopping distances were, the higher the order of shopping goods was. It was also confirmed that the greater the variation of shopping trips, the lower the order of goods.
Then, Hayashi's Quantification Theory-II was applied to these data to examine the relationships between shopping behavior and household characteristics. Table 6 and Table 7 present correlation ratios and partial correlation coefficients for explained variables (characteristics of households) by each good. Although correlation rations showed high scores in both 1st and 2nd root for clothes, furniture, and gifts, they were small for other goods. The results indicated a general tendency that the higher the order of shopping goods, the stronger the relationships between shopping behavior and household's characteristics. The relationships between household characteristics and their shopping behavior, however, were not explained by single characteristics such as the year of inflow, but by intricate relationships among several characteristics. This was obvious because there were no characteristics with high partial correlation coefficients for all goods.
In detail, the relationships between consumer shopping behavior and household characteristics were weak for lower order goods such as bread and meat etc.

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In recent years a new view has emerged that some of the metropolitan areas are now altering their fundamental structure. Because of the suburbanization of the population and industries of the central city, even the population of the metropolitan area as the commuter area of the central city has began to decline. According to this view this situation means that the monocentric structure of the metropolitan area is changing into a structure which has multiple cores. It has been asserted that some of the Japanese metropolitan areas are also nearing this situation. In Japanese metropolitan areas, too, the population, manufacturing and retail functions of the central city are now suburbanizing.
In this paper the change of the structure in the metropolitan area is verified through the investigation of the suburbanizing process of retail functions. Retail functions are the most typical of the functions which are rapidly suburbanizing these days. In the same way that commuters are attracted by the functions of places of employment, the functions of retail districts in attracting consumers contributes to the formation of the metropolitan area as a functional region. The suburbanization of the retail function is analyzed from two sides. In the first place, the Index of Population Specialization in the retail function of each administrative unit (cities, wards, towns, and villages) is calculated.
S=Ri/Pi/Rm/Pm
S: Index of Population Specialization R: Agglomeration of the Retail Function
P: Population i: Administrative unit m: Total of the metropilitan area
R is calculated as follows.
R=∑Ej·Wj
E: Number of the persons engaged by industry
W: Weight from the value of annual sales per one employed person
j: Industry (intermediate group)
Secondly the change of the commercial districts where consumers in the metropolitan area go to buy are examined.
The results of these analyses are as follows: The retail functions of most units in the suburbs are supplying almost all the demand of their population. It is not only convenience goods but also shopping goods that come to be supplied in the suburb. The commercial districts at the core of the central cities however maintain their position. And it is the retail functions of the units in the inner city, except for the cores, and the units at the edge of metropolitan area that are stagnant.
The structure of retail functions in the Keihanshin metropolitan area once showed a differential between the commercial districts of the central cities and those of the suburbs. But only the commercial districts of the core now maintain the differential. In such a manner, at least as far as retail functions are concerned, the monocentric structure of the metropolitan area is evidently declining step by step. It is supposed that these districts keep their position due to the qualitative changes of the commercial districts in the core of the central city as posited by Western urban studies. These changes and the new structures must be clarified, with this in mind, it is necessary to throw light on the growth of the suburb and its relation to the core.

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