Big Boxes Versus Traditional Shopping Centres. Looking at Households' Shopping Trip Patterns

The expansion of large shopping centres and, more recently, of ìbig boxî outlets and ìpower centresî in North-American and West European urban areas is a major feature of the retail trade sector development. While several internal and external factors affecting retail facilities design and location may be brought forward as possible explanations for this concentration, customersí behaviour in terms of shopping destination choices emerges as one of the main determinants of retail competition. In this paper, the competition between, on the one hand, regional and superregional shopping centres and, on the other hand, ìcategory killersî and ìbig boxesî is analyzed using discrete choice modelling (logistic regression). Thanks to an extensive Origin-Destination phone survey carried out in the Quebec Metropolitan Area in 2001 for transportation planning purposes and providing detailed information on both householdsí socioeconomic and demographic profiles and daily trip patterns, it is possible to identify and model customersí shopping choices with respect to the type of retail facilities they favour. Findings suggest that several household and trip attributes do impact upon customersí choice for either big boxes or traditional shopping centres. These are: customerís gender and age, trip purpose, car ownership, day of the week, departure time and place, transportation mode, type of household and trip length.