ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that shopping accounts, on average, for less than 1 per cent of an individual’s time (Chapin and Brail 1969), and despite the fact that retailing comprises only a tiny proportion of all land use, the study of consumer behaviour has generated a vast literature, both in business (e.g. Foxall 1980) and in geography (e.g. Shepherd and Thomas 1980). As a result, ‘consumer spatial behaviour’ has become the focus of a good deal of geographical research. Basically, this term refers to both the processes by which shoppers choose which shops and shopping centres to visit, and their actual travel patterns. Early studies of consumer spatial behaviour by geographers focused on the relationship between consumer travel and central place theory (Berry 1967). Application of the theoretical ideal of rational economic behaviour to the journey to shop led to the proposition that consumers minimize travel and therefore patronize the nearest shopping centre offering whatever goods are required. Put simply, much of this early work followed simple central place theory in assuming that shopping centres on the same hierarchical level are equally attractive to consumers with the result that there is no reason for a shopper to patronize other than the nearest one (Halperin 1988).
