Retailing in rural Finland and the challenge of nearby cities

Abstract

Reviews the trends in Finland towards greater concentration and more hypermarkets, power centres and out-of-town centres. Provides the background for a mail survey of 857 householders residing in rural areas surrounding the small municipality of Aura. These residents are subject to the attractions of two nearby shopping developments and three cities. The results revealed that not only the disadvantaged but also affluent, mobile, middle-aged people very often use the retail facilities located in their home areas. Aura has the greatest market share among the alternative shopping destinations, especially when grocery shopping is involved. The market shares of two nearby shopping developments, but also the market share of Turku CBD, were smaller than expected. Shopping preferences for the nearby developments and cities are greatest for products such as clothes and shoes.

Rural retailing: a sector in decline?

“…Outshopping to larger retail destinations results in the loss of local custom (Lumpkin et al, 1986;Marjanen, 2000). Broadbridge and Calderwood (2002) defined outshoppers as consumers whose primary shopping occurs outwith the immediate area, whilst LaForge et al (1984) defined it as patronage occurring outside of the local community.…”

Outlet patronage in on-the-go consumption: An analysis of patronage preference drivers for convenience outlets versus traditional retail outlets

“…The areas consumers live in differ with respect to the density of specific types of outlets (Marjanen, 2000). The number of traditional retail outlets and convenience outlets differs between rural and city environments (Cotterill and Franklin, 1995).…”

A review and extension of the outshopping paradigm to the Indian context

“…Other kinds of ru ral outshopping, ru ral-to-ur ban is most prev a lent and leads to huge traf fic and trade flow. Lit er a ture stud ies these two forms of outshopping as one (Broadbridge and Calderwood 2002;Marjanen 2000;Polonsky and Jarratt 1992;Jarratt and Polonsky 1993). Tak ing larger re tail es tab lish ment as one en tity whether it is ru ral or ur ban.…”

“…Stud ies in outshopping from ru ral Amer ica have been only a re cent phenom e non (Miller and Kean 1995;Miller and Kean 1997 etc. ) Stud ies on outshop ping in Eu rope were picked up a lit tle later than in Amer ica and most of them were on ru ral outshopping (Marjanen 1995;Fran cisco 1998;Marjanen 2000;Broadbridge and Calderwood 2002). How ever, in ad di tion there were stud ies re lated to de vel op ment of re gional shop ping malls and there af ter stud ies to de sign strat e gies so as to pre vent de cline of town cen tres (Bearden 1977).…”