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'Do people travel further to buy comparison goods rather than convenience goods?'

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Introduction

King-Wey Hii 10 Bonington Geography Coursework St Albans Field Trip Year 10 2003 'Do people travel further to buy comparison goods rather than convenience goods?' Introduction: My title asks, 'do people travel further to buy comparison goods rather than convenience goods?' My data collection was carried out in the central business district (CBD) of St Albans. My general aim is to investigate a range of interests of shoppers in the area and also a little on the land use in the CBD. Once sufficient data is collected I will be manipulating it to answer my hypothesis and to draw a conclusion from the relevant results. St Albans was visited on a Market day, which is held in the main street of the city every Wednesday and Saturday. It was a suitable study area as it has many different aspects to it which would suit the needs for different types of data collection for many students with a large variety of hypothesises and questions. St Albans is located in Hertforshire, south-eastern England, on the River Ver, near its confluence with the Colne. St Albans is situated on the northern fringe of Greater London. The district includes the city and the parishes of Colney Heath, Harpenden Rural, Harpenden Town, London Colney, Redbourn, St. ...read more.

Middle

First of all, it was quite difficult to fill in every shop on the map. Some of the stores were hard to find or couldn't be found at all. Also, the map was a little too small to fill in enough detail. The shopper's questionnaire was carried out later on in the day. Each person in each group was advised to ask at least 5 different people who were seen in their particular area of the CBD. By asking the actual shoppers in St Albans, it allowed us to see their interests, whether they came to shop for comparison goods or convenience goods, how far they have travelled to buy what they wanted to buy, where bouts they have come from etc. Each question in the questionnaire had a different purpose, and some had some problems with them: - 'Are you shopping in St Albans?': this was the first question asked. If the answer was 'no' to this question, most of the other questions that followed would be completely irrelevant. - 'Were you held up in any traffic jam?': there was a problem with this question because, if the person being questioned travelled by foot it would not be a relevant. ...read more.

Conclusion

Also, all the reasons I have given as to why people may have travelled from particular places to buy either of the types of goods, even each other out. For example, the lack of variety of comparison stores lowers the distance people would be willing to travel for comparison goods, but at the same time the distance people would be willing to travel for convenience goods is being extended due to the unique market St Albans has. The results and interpretations don't particularly match text book predictions saying that people travel further to buy comparison goods than convenience goods. The ranges of the goods are very similar in this study and it shows that many factors can effect the distance people would be willing to travel to buy a particular good or to use a particular service. Therefore, one cannot always be grounded on the idea that comparison goods are always travelled further for than convenience goods are. To conclude, people do not travel further to buy comparison goods rather than convenience goods, but they travel about the same distances for either. * Acknowledgements: www.wikipedia.org (used to obtain background information on St Albans) www.mapquest.co.uk (used to obtain images of maps) Understanding GCSE Geography by Ann Bowen and John Pallister (used to obtain some geographical background) ...read more.

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