Retail centres: it's time to make them convenient

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of time convenience on shopping behaviour in the light of a time scarcity phenomenon that is reported to have reached epidemic proportions in many markets.

The paper begins with a survey of consumer households, examining the importance shoppers assign to time convenience. This is followed by a supply‐side comparison of malls and shopping strips against the attributes of time convenience.

The results indicate that time convenience has a salient influence on consumers' patronage behaviour, and that malls and strips differ in their provision of this key attribute.

Retail planners must give serious thought to creating retail environments that allow shoppers to “buy” time. Providing time convenience via one‐stop shopping, extended trading hours, proximity to home or work and enclosure offers one such strategy for the shopping mall and shopping strip.

The focus on convenience provides practitioners with a strategic alternative to hedonic strategies. It is also one of the first studies to investigate retail centre patronage from both a demand‐and supply‐side perspective.