Study Points To Shopping Pattern Shifts In A Declining Economy

(via Morning News Beat)

In a new report, TNS Retail Forward suggests that the increased cost of food and gasoline is having a broad series of impacts on US shopping patterns that, in the broadest sense, is causing people to change the stores they visit, the frequency of their shopping trips, and the products they choose.

Among the specific revelations:

• Seventy-five percent of people are planning errands to minimize the distance traveled.

• Fifty-eight percent are saying that they are going to stores where they can do one-stop shopping, with 55 percent saying they are choosing stores closer to work and/or home.

• Twenty-six percent of shoppers are turning to retailers other than where they usually shop to offset high gasoline prices. They are shopping more at discount and value formats and less at upscale and specialty retailers. In contrast, patrons of upscale and specialty formats report shopping them less often to get better deals elsewhere.

• Twenty-six percent of consumers say they are choosing to do more online shopping as a way of saving their own fuel expenses.

• Eight percent of consumers are saying that they are using public transportation instead of driving (a number that may be this low because of the lack of choices available in many communities).
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So we have some contradictions... more local shopping, but not at "locally owned" stores, unless they are discount and value formats.