Shopping Coursework

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Introduction

Ideas, Concepts and Processes

During the month of August 2009, I collected the data for my geography coursework. As I was to be on holiday for the whole of my summer break I chose to investigate two locations near my holiday location, East Wittering High Street and Chichester High Street. I chose these two locations as they are suitably different whilst still being in a similar enough location that people will have heard of both.

I chose to study Shopping, from the topic Settlement, as my Geography Coursework Topic, as I believe that shopping is changing. Less people go to the small village shops that are near them, instead travelling further to use large supermarkets or even buying their shopping online and having it delivered.  Shopping is no longer a leisurely past time, instead it’s become a chore and less and less people are spending their weekends at the shopping areas near them, but if they do go shopping, it becomes a great task involving a long travel, or great expense.

My Hypothesis

There is a greater variety of shops on Chichester High Street than East Wittering High Street, so more people will travel further, but less often, to shop there. 

This was then split into four, key questions;

  1. What attracts shoppers to Chichester and East Wittering?
  2. How often do people shop in Chichester and East Wittering?
  3. How far will people travel to shop in Chichester or East Wittering?
  4. How is shopping different in Chichester or East Wittering?

Locating the Study Area

The two Locations of Chichester and East Wittering are located on the South Coast of England, in the county of West Sussex, bordering Surrey on the North. It is divided by the South Downs and apart from the coastal strip there are few main roads in the area; however there is a Railway Link from London Waterloo to Chichester.  Approximately 60 miles from London the journey can take at least one and a half hours by car of an hour on the main roads that link the county to others. There are many rivers such as the River Lavant which runs through my first location Chichester.

With a population of 106,445, Chichester is a fast growing town, known mostly for Chichester Cathedral and Chichester University. There are several marinas, and being near the coast, Sailing and other water sports are very popular activities, however its shopping district is also very popular.

 East Wittering, with its population of 4,117 is located directly upon the coast, and is a popular with holiday makers and its surfing culture is growing rapidly. With its large number of rentable properties and camping areas, it has become more popular over the years with tourists.

Thorough Understanding

I am looking at the Sphere of Influences of both Chichester and East Wittering, which are affected by many different things. A larger settlement with better transport links and a larger number or variety of shops and services will have a larger influence because people will travel further to have a choice. A settlement with greater accessibility will have a greater range so it will have a larger sphere of influence, if it's less accessible than people will go to different shops. Different things affect the size of the sphere of influence such as a settlement's attractiveness such as street appearance, crime rates, other attractions for example cinemas or bowling alleys and wealth of the area.

I think that Chichester will have a larger sphere of influence than East Wittering because of its extensive transport links and variety of shops and wealth, making it more attractive to the shoppers compared to East Wittering parade. East Wittering, although having the beach as a popular tourist attraction, is less accessible and so is less wealthy making its parade look a little tired.

The range of East Wittering is less than Chichester because of its high number of convenience shops and its inaccessibility compared to Chichester, which has many large comparison goods stores and good transport links. Most people will travel short distances to buy their necessities and don't want to travel far for these low-order goods. To most people it may not seem worth travelling to East Wittering as they can get everything that is sold there from places that may be closer to them, whereas Chichester has well-known chain shops that people will travel further to shop at to get the choice when buying expensive high-order goods. The threshold population of these two places are different for similar reasons. East Wittering is a smaller shopping area with fewer shops, so it will not need as many people to shop there to make a profit, whereas Chichester has shops that need more customers to make a profit as they are larger, better known shops.

I would say that East Wittering is a Small Town from the shopping hierarchy as it has a population of approximately 5,000 people and has just one main shopping street. However Chichester is a large town or city with its growing population of 100,000 and having many shopping streets and sub-urban and city-edge shopping locations.

People buy low order goods; convenience goods, regularly so don't want to travel far to buy them, because they are necessities so people don't want to waste time or money to travelling large distances to purchase them. For this reason people want local shops that they can travel to quickly to buy the things they have run out of.

For Comparison goods, the opposite is true. People want to spend longer looking at the best place to buy what they want and to have a wider choice, and so are willing to travel further at a higher expense. For example people will only shop at East Wittering if they live close by to buy their everyday convenience goods. However in Chichester people will travel further to buy the comparison goods that they want from there and won't be looking for convenience goods.


Methodology.

There are more shops selling comparison goods on Chichester High Street than East Wittering High Street, so more people will travel further to shop there.

  1. What attracts shoppers to Chichester and East Wittering?
  2. How often do people shop in Chichester and East Wittering?
  3. How far will people travel to shop in Chichester or East Wittering? (How do they get there?)
  4. How is shopping different in Chichester or East Wittering?

I am going to complete my investigation in the following order:

  1. Collecting my Primary and Secondary data
  2. Presenting my data with tables and graphs
  3. Interpreting my data to relate to my hypothesis
  4. Evaluating my investigation

This section is on the collection of my data and how each piece of data will answer my four key questions, and in turn, prove my hypothesis.

To collect my data, I used different methods of Data Collection        

                        Questionnaires

                        Shopping Transect        

                        Pedestrian Count

                        Environmental Quality Index

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I used different methods of collection to provide me with different ways to answer the key questions I had decided upon.

Questionnaires

I used questionnaires to collect certain data from people who were shopping in each of my chosen locations; 30 in Chichester High Street, 15 in East Wittering High Street. I chose this number as I felt that it gave me enough data to be able to compare and it will be reliable, but the collection will not be too time consuming and I will not have too much data to handle. I asked more people in Chichester ...

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