Investigating consumers" tendency to combine multiple shopping purposes and destinations

Due to the increasing time pressure that they face, many consumers are becoming more concerned about the efficiency of their shopping patterns. Retailers have recognize this trend, have improved shopping convenience by offering greater variety in product categories and making it easier for consumers to combine visits to multiple stores. However, little is known about how consumers improve the efficiency of their shopping trips, or how changes in retail supply affect the way in which consumers combine multiple purposes and destinations. Building on previous work in consumer shopping trip modeling and conjoint design theory, this paper introduces a choice-based conjoint approach to studying and modeling this phenomenon. The approach is illustrated in a case study which investigated the tendency of Dutch shoppers to combine grocery, drugstore and clothing purchases across multiple shopping destinations. It was observed that the tendency of consumers to combine purchases differed from category to category and also depended on category availability. In general, consumers combined considerably less purchases than could be expected if their shopping trip planning were based purely on travel cost minimization.