Competition Commission (2000)

“…whether or not consumers have adequate choice will depend very much on local circumstances, which will vary widely from area to area”

Novelty of the Project

• Explores the effects of changing retail provision at the local level over a long period (20 years plus) in an ‘average’ UK location, Portsmouth
• Combines extensive quantitative study of behaviour and attitudes to shopping with deep qualitative insights into how different households use and experience retail outlets
• Underlines the challenge of using ‘consumer choice’ as a yardstick for the effectiveness of local competition

Key Conclusions

• People do not feel they have the choices available that planners and policy makers think they have
  - Despite the explosion in retail provision and improvements in living standards over the last two decades
• People seem too busy to do their food shopping
  - They are not so much ‘making choices’ as struggling to fit their food shopping in-and-around increasingly busy work commitments and lifestyles
• Two key challenges face retailers and policy-makers:
  - Retailers will need to understand households much better than they do at the moment to ‘stand out’ and reap the business opportunities that are at stake
  - Policy-makers will need to develop ways in which to represent what having ‘adequate choice’ really means at the local level for different types of consumers, and regulate and plan accordingly

Research Questions

1. In what ways has the geography of retail provision altered in our study area over last 20 years?
2. How have such developments affected consumer choice at the local level?
3. To what extent do consumption patterns – measured in terms of purchasing behaviour and perceptions of different forms of grocery provision – vary significantly at the neighbourhood & household level? (Have these perceptions changed over time?).
4. How do consumers experience these effects through the choices they have available?

Methodology

Phase I: Behavioural changes – 2,500 at-store interviews; 7 stores; June 2002

Phase II: Attitudinal changes – 2,150 at-home questionnaires distributed in different neighbourhoods; September 2002

Phase III: Neighbourhood focus groups in 5 contrasting areas

Phase IV: Household ethnographies (over 18 months)

• 2 Focus groups to establish public discourses in extreme areas (Purbrook and Paulsgrove)
• 8 in-depth household studies using a combination of techniques
  - Diaries of shopping trips (over 10 days)
  - Multiple accompanied shopping trips
  - Informal conversations / kitchen visits

Changes in Grocery Shopping Behaviour, 1980 -2002

• Shopping is increasingly being done close to home and work – 39% now use a main store within 5 minutes, compared to 17% in 1980
• People are also shopping more frequently – 21% shopped 3 times a week in 2002 compared to 9% in 1980
• More shoppers than ever are reliant on a ‘main store’ for their food shopping – increased from 58% to 65%
• They are using a larger repertoire of stores – fewer people now rely on one store for all their needs – down from 46% to 31%
• There has been a major increase in people shopping alone – up to 72% from 43% twenty years ago
• Only a small proportion (7%) currently use the internet for grocery shopping

Changes in Grocery Shopping Behaviour, 1980 -2002

• It is more difficult for consumers to make comparisons between main stores because they are now less often located adjacent to each other
• People still focus on factors such as convenience, price, range, quality, layout and service in deciding where to shop, but:
  - Convenience and choice / range of each store appear to have increased in importance
  - Easier (quicker or more accessible) shopping is increasingly valued by most households
  - Minor accessibility problems have a major influence on choice
  - Consumers are increasingly conscious about what their choice of store ‘says’ about them
  - A concern over prices is not limited to poorer consumers – most are concerned about prices and will not compromise – they constantly trade-off value and quality
• Terms such as ‘convenience’ are over-used – they mean different things to different people and need unpacking

The Effects of Mobility on Choice

Mobile Households

• Extensive choice – can afford to be ‘choosy’
• Perceive few social and economic barriers to access
• Degree of satisfaction varied significantly, even between similar households
• ‘Quality’ is a big issue
• Use superstores for weekly and top-up shopping
• Practice wide-scale abrogation because of habits or preferences

Less-Mobile Households

• Critical of limited store offerings and ‘forced dependence’ on supermarkets
• Aware of low-price stores but often feel excluded because of perceived access restrictions
• Affects lower income and elderly households, even in more affluent neighbourhoods
• Have to develop inventive ‘coping strategies’
• Feel disadvantaged by the retail approach of larger superstore formats (need a car, need to buy in bulk, pack sizes etc), often self-excluding themselves
• Value small stores but many fail to meet community needs

Household Attitudes
Cross-cutting themes

• Shopping choices are as much ‘habitual’ as ‘strategic’ and are actively mediated by household context
  - Having access to a car is a key enabler / disabler
  - Timing of income payments often determine when and where a household shops
• Changes to family situations have an immediate effect on where they shop and what they buy
• Whether or not a store is used depends largely on the degree to which it ‘matches’ / ‘fits into’ household routines

Household Attitudes
Cross-cutting themes

• In deciding where to shop they make judgments on basic issues which need unpacking as important dimensions of choice – rather than generalising
  - ‘Convenience’ = Proximity, fitting-into routines, quality and freshness of products, size of stores, cultural preferences for certain stores / retail ‘brands’
  - ‘Value’ = price v. quality, with subjective judgements being made on taste and freshness
  - Judgments about how ‘nice’ and ‘pleasant’ a store is are often class-coded, reflecting where households feel ‘comfortable’
• Moral judgments are frequently involved in shopping (e.g. being a ‘good mother’ / ‘good wife’)

Household Case Studies
Choices are affected by the fit to a household’s routine

Eleanor (Paulsgrove):

“[After shopping] I went to the gym. Had a driving lesson then picked Maria up from school. Picked shopping up after school “(Shopping diary, dayone).

“I went to Commercial Rd to pay some bills, then we took Maria to the dentist, then half an hour in park, then we done the shopping”. (Shopping diary Day 4)

“We went to the Post Office, then Co-op to do gas and top up the phone. Then we done the shopping” (Shopping diary, Day 8)

Choices involve households making judgments
‘Fitting-in’

Hilary (Purbrook):

“Yes I mean I fit the shopping in, if it’s convenient I fit it in with collecting from school or something because its economical with petrol hopefully and all that sort of thing… sometimes if I want to pick up something that I can only get from a specialist shop in Havant, I will park the car in Tescos – if I’ve got the time – go and get that shopping then come back and do the Tesco shopping… I don’t buy ice cream unless I’m coming straight home” (Kitchen visit)

Choices involve households making judgments
‘Convenience: frequency, quality & freshness

Hilary (Purbrook):

“I prefer to go to the butcher’s... It’s convenient because there you can have it fresh, you know if I’m passing regularly which I am at the moment; you can buy the amount you want, not what’s in the packet…” ( Accompanied shopping trip). “Oh I went in there [Lidl] once to buy one thing and there was a huge queue ... but I wouldn’t go there because it’s not convenient, I don’t go past it...it’s near where I work so that’s the only reason I went in because it’s near where I work”

The Emerging Nature of ‘Choice’

• Consumers are demanding of choice
  - It is about having flexibility and options
• Choices within neighbourhoods vary markedly depending on household circumstances – pockets of disadvantage can be masked by an apparent abundance of choice
• ‘Real choices’ involve a very limited repertoire, much narrower than the total provision theoretically available to residents in a given area, and it is this which needs to be given much greater attention by retailers, policy-makers and planners

Thoughts..

• Choice is more limited than we sometimes think – especially for the less mobile
• How to fill gaps in provision?
• Lessons from abroad?