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 because it is a larger location and needed a larger sample to get a varied response.
I stopped people as they passed by the places that I was standing in the centre of the street and asked if they would answer a few questions for me. I stopped people randomly because that way I would have a less biased result because every shopper had the chance to be questioned. I asked people between the times of 10am and 4pm so that I was asking them throughout the whole of the shopping day on a weekend. However, I will also keep in mind the fact that I need to ask a similar amount of males and females and people of different age groups because each of these people will have different shopping habits.
I used questionnaires as it was a convenient way of collecting many different pieces of information quickly and easily, and would help me answer my key questions and prove my hypothesis;
Are you shopping here today? - People who are not shopping would have given different results to people who are, therefore affecting my results.
Where have you travelled from? - This shows me where the people who shop in each location have travelled from, giving me the sphere of influence and answering my hypothesis. However because both my location attract tourist, it may be slightly distorted by people travelling from locations outside the sphere. This will help me answer key question number three.
Approximately, how long did it take you to get here? - I chose to ask this to see whether people who had to take longer to travel to places would take the time to make the journey, or whether only people who could get to places in a short time would shop in each location, which can help to prove my hypothesis and perhaps help me answer key question number one.
What mode of transport did you use to get here? - From this I can see how people travel to their shopping locations, and whether this is affected by the type of shopping centre each location is. This helps me answer key question number three.
What kind of shopping are you doing here today? I decided to ask this question because it will help me find out whether more shoppers are in each location to do convenience or comparison shopping, which will help me answer my hypothesis and my key question one.
What attracts you to shopping here? - This can help me to answer my first key question as I will be able to find out why shoppers choose to shop in these particular shopping centres.
What’s your age? - This is to help me ask a varied number of people in different age groups.
Environmental Quality Index (EQIs)
I can use EQIs to help me answer my Key Question one because it can show me what attracts people to different places and why they would have shopped in each location. It shows the quality of the environment in each location therefore showing what people may be attracted to in a shopping location.
I did three EQIs in Chichester as it is a larger location. One at the point where the pedestrianised street and the road met on East Street, one at the central point, the Chichester Cross, and one halfway between these points to get a round view of the quality of this shopping area.
In East Wittering I only did two EQIs because it is a much smaller shopping area and there was less need to record over a large area. I completed one of my EQIs outside of Tesco and one outside out of the Bakery.
I rated each location out of five in a number of categories, and with a total of between 18 and 90, so the lower the score the nicer the environment. The EQIs will show me how good the environmental quality of the area is, taking into account many different aspects of the environment, shown in the table below.
Pedestrian Counts
I did three Pedestrian counts in East Wittering and four in Chichester on both a weekend and weekday. This will give me an unbiased result of how many people are in each location at any one time and whether people prefer to shop in certain locations around the shopping area. I did the counts on both the weekdays and the week end because generally people will be free of their regular routine so are more likely to go shopping.
I decided to do pedestrian counts because they can help me to how busy each location is and then show me how large the sphere of influence is. If a shopping centre is very busy then people will have travelled further to shop there, so its sphere of influence must be larger. This will help me to answer my hypothesis.
I counted for ten minutes so as to have enough data to be reliable but not so much that it was difficult to handle as counting people if it is busy can be difficult. I had a friend to help me with the counting and as I counted one side, she counted the other and we added them together, making my data, I think much more reliable than if I had collected it myself.
When counting, I only counted adults or children over the age of, in my eye, ten because children under this age really have no choice about whether they wanted to come shopping. I did my pedestrian counts in the same locations as I did my EQI as they are well positioned locations and are well spaced over the street.
Shopping Transect
I took my shopping transects to help me prove my 4th Key Question. I took my shopping transect on the main High Street starting from Barclays Bank to Sterns (Hardware store) in East Wittering and on East Street starting from Barclays Bank to The Body Shop in Chichester. I walked along the street marking down what each type of shop on both sides of the street is sorted into under the following categories: Convenience, Comparison, Specialist, Bank, Vacant, Other. This will help me to prove my hypothesis because I would be able to see which location has more Comparison shops
Secondary Data
For my secondary data, I only needed to collect bus timetables to help me answer my second key question and I used to internet to collect this data. This will help me to understand whether people are more likely to shop in a location because it has better transport links.
Data Interpretation
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.
Key Question 1
What Attracts Shoppers To Chichester and East Wittering?
If we look at my Questionnaire results about what attracts people to shopping in either location, we can see that in East Wittering, figure 3a, distance is the most popular reason with 46% of people choosing to shop there because of how far they travel but with price and other activities also being popular reasons with 20% and 27% respectively.
However when we compare this to Chichester, figure 3b, the variety of different shops is people’s main reason for shopping here with 43% and appearance is close behind, 27%, but the distance and price are also reason for people to shop in Chichester, 10% each.
From this we can see that people are more likely to shop in Chichester for its range of shops and its mixture of comparison and convenience goods, whereas shoppers in East Wittering will be there because it is local and not many people have travelled specifically to shop there because of the shops they are able to find there but more because it is the closest place to get their low-order goods. This suggests that there is a small sphere of influence for East Wittering as people as not as willing to travel far to shop there.
I can link this to my shopping transect and from this, figures 8a and 8b, I can further prove that the types of shops in Chichester may be the main reason for shoppers to visit. 41% of shops in Chichester in are Comparison and the second most common type of shop is specialist. In East Wittering, the most common type of shop is Comparison; however Convenience is second most common with 35%.
From this I can see that although more shops are comparison, by linking back to my questionnaire results, we see that many people shopped in East Wittering because it is close to their homes and so we can assume that many of these shoppers will actually be shopping for convenience items which are bought daily so people don't want to travel far for them.
This helps me prove what attracts people as if there are more shoppers in Chichester then I can see that comparison goods are what attract people to shopping towns, and if there are more shoppers in East Wittering I can say its convenience items.
When looking at my EQI results, figures 1a and 1b, I can see that overall Chichester has a higher environmental quality than East Wittering because the totals of Chichester are lower. This is because East Wittering had higher scores in Boring, Cramped and Poor with four, but low scores in Friendly, Safe and Homely.
Although one total of East Wittering is about equal to a result in Chichester which can help us see that not all of the locations are hugely different. These results help me to understand that in certain aspects, East Wittering is not as nice as Chichester mostly to do with its wealth and planning, however there are areas which make East Wittering more appealing to shoppers than Chichester.
There is a nice environment in Chichester which attracts people to shop there, and if I link this to figure 3b where 27% of people were attracted because of the street appearance I can see that perhaps the reason many people shop in Chichester is because it looks nice and they are encouraged to shop there again.
Looking at my annotated photographs, figures 6a and 6b, I can see what attracts shoppers to each location. In East Wittering there are benches and plants along the side of the street which improve the aesthetics of the street and a pedestrian crossing which makes the shoppers feel safer.
In Chichester, figures 7a, 7b and 7c, there are similar street decorations but instead the area is pedestrianised which makes shopping there safer and there are many bins placed alongside the street which encourages people to throw their rubbish away to prevent them from littering and also helps to encourage people to recycle in the recycling bins. The street has history with the Cathedral and Chichester Cross nearby which make the shopping experience unique and appealing.
Another reason people may shop in East Wittering is because of the close convenient distance from their homes and because they are shopping for low-order goods will only shop somewhere local. Looking at figures 5a and 5b, most people, 60%, only travelled for 1-10 minutes to get to East Wittering Parade, compared to Chichester where the most common length of time was 21-30 minutes but the lengths of time were more spread over the times. I can understand that people who are very close to East Wittering are more likely to shop there which shows me that it has a small sphere of influence, but people who shop in Chichester are more likely to have come from further away.
People may also be attracted to Chichester because of its convenient bus routes and this increases each areas sphere of Influence. With easy access to the shops the bus routes encourage people to return to the area by bus, and also travel further distance if the bus routes are pleasant.
Key Question 2
How often do people shop in Chichester and East Wittering?
By looking at my comparative pie charts, figure 4a and 4b, I can see that most people, 55%, only shop in Chichester once a month, which implies that people take Chichester as a shopping trip perhaps after they have been paid, to purchase high-order goods which they would only buy occasionally because of high expense. This implies that shopping in Chichester is mostly high-order as very few people, just 7%, shop there more than twice a week. This is backed up by the information that most of the shops in Chichester are Comparison shops, and as Comparison goods are not bought as often as other goods people will not shop there as often.
However, in East Wittering people shop there Daily, 53% of the time. A shopping street with a lot of Convenience shops in which low-order goods are sold will be frequented more often as people need to buy their daily necessities everyday which shows us that East Wittering is a convenience shopping centre as people frequent there every day to buy their low-order goods. Surprisingly, 7% of people shopped here yearly. I think this can be explained by East Wittering's tourist attraction and how people, I expect, may only shop here once a year when they come for their holiday.
By looking at my pedestrian counts, figure 9a and 9b, located comparative pie charts for the number of pedestrians counted during 10 minutes on a week day and week end between 12pm and 1pm. I can see that many more people shop in Chichester than East Wittering, and that more people shop in either location at the weekend than during a weekday. I think this is because Chichester has a larger variety of shops so more people will shop here especially if it's a week end, however because of the large number of comparison shops, people will not travel here as often because they don't need to buy high-order goods as often because they are expensive
However in East Wittering, although there are less people, people will shop there often because of what they buy when they are there, convenience goods, meaning they have to travel there most days to buy their daily necessities. Also there were probably more shoppers in Chichester because of the difference in the number of shops compared to East Wittering. More shops means more shoppers and it also means that people can stay longer as there is more to look at.
Key Question 3
How far will people travel to shop in Chichester or East Wittering? What transportation do they use?
By using my Chloropleth map, showing where shoppers have travelled from, I can see that in Chichester, figure 10b, 4-6 shoppers came from the Postcode areas surrounding Chichester, PO18, PO20, PO19, PO21 etc. and that the number of shoppers was diluted over a large area even though I had ask a larger number of people, showing Chichester's large sphere of influence.
East Wittering, figure 10a, on the other hand had a much more concentrated number of people coming from the postcodes closest to East Wittering with over 7 people coming from PO20, East Wittering's postcode, shopping in East Wittering and I presumed this to be people living very close to shopping area. 4-6 people came from PO18, and 1-3 people coming from the other post codes closest to East Wittering.
I was surprised not to have any anomalous results as I was expecting to get the post codes of some tourists, at least in East Wittering as it is very close to the beach so people may come to visit the tourist attractions in the area and end up shopping. However I didn't get any results which indicated this.
By looking at my pie charts, figure 11a and 11b, I can compare the distance people are willing to travel, figures 5a and 5b, and what method of transport people used to compare how people get to each location.
Most people, 60% walked to shop in East Wittering presumably because they live close and so to do their daily shopping will only need to take a short trip into the village to get their necessities. However some people also took bicycles and buses both with 13% and cars were also used, 7%. 1 person, 7%, answered with other and I always ponder over what this might be. From this I can gather that East Wittering has a small sphere of influence as most people who shop there are within walking distance of the high street and only travel for 1-10 minutes to get there.
In Chichester there is a completely different picture, 40% of people who shop in Chichester got there by Car. Buses and Train were also both more popular methods of transportation with 23% and 20% respectively. Walking dropped to only 7% along with Bicycle and just one person got to Chichester by Motorbike. This shows that Chichester has a larger sphere of influence as the shoppers are travelling from further away and travel by car, bus or train to get there.
From this information I can understand that people who shop in Chichester are more likely to travel by car, and so, using my data from the previous graphs I can understand that people who shop in comparison shops are more likely to be too far away from their chosen shopping area to walk. This can help me understand that Chichester has a larger sphere of influence and that it's more of a comparison shopping centre so people will be more willing to travel further at a higher expense to themselves to shop there so as to get the choice.
East Wittering, on the other hand, has people who are more likely to walk to the high street because they are just there to buy their daily goods and so live nearby. People may get the bus or come by car but not very many people have in my data. This is slightly surprising as tourists would not walk there as they will have come from further, so would not be able to walk there. This indicated East Wittering's smaller sphere of influence and how people do not want to travel far to get their daily necessities as it is seen as a chore.
In my annotated photos, I can see a number of ways in which the council may be encouraging the shoppers to travel alternative ways to the towns as the bus stops are easily accessible to the shops in my East Wittering photos and there are readily available bike racks which also have access to the shops. In the Chichester photos there are also bike racks and you can just see a bus stop in figure 5b which is in easy access to the shops. This make people feel like there won't be so much of a hassle every time they come to the shops as they will be right beside the shops and won't need to wander looking for their favourite shops as the bus stop is right beside the Chichester Cross which is a main meeting point and so is the easiest place to find your way from.
Key Question 4
How is shopping different in Chichester or East Wittering?
By looking at my shopping transects, I can see a larger variety of shops in Chichester. There is a greater number, 41%, of comparison shops and very few, 12%, convenience shops which implies that there is a larger need for comparison shops in Chichester. This can help me to understand about what types of shopping is most popular in Chichester because there is a larger number of comparison shops which shows me that because there is a larger need for the high-order goods, more shops which sell this type of good are in the area as they continue to make money and draw people back to shopping there. There are many comparison shops next to each other and sometimes crowded around a large magnet store as people want to be able to go into many different shops to be able to compare the prices of their high-order goods before buying and so that they can get the choice.
In East Wittering there is also high number of comparison shops, but these shops are placed fairly near the beginning of the street and with the two large supermarkets which draw people to the high street. The large supermarkets provide shoppers with an easy way to purchase their daily necessities. From this I understand that if a shopping centre is to provide convenience goods there needs to be comparison shops as well as at least one large supermarket to draw people in.
From these two points I understand that no matter what kind of shopping a location provides the need for a large store that draws people in, a magnet store, is evident. People will be coming to shopping location, probably to look for a specific thing, or to shop in a certain store if they have heard that it is recently opened. These shops will draw people to the location and shops next to it will become more popular as people leave the magnet store to go into another shop. This will encourage the variety of shops around an area, which I can use to prove my hypothesis as there are a greater number of magnet stores in Chichester which helps me to understand why a larger number of shoppers go to Chichester for their Comparison goods.
I can understand that if a shopping centre has many convenience shops then people will be most likely drawn the centre because they need to buy their low-order goods, but if it also has a number of comparison shops then it is more likely to have a higher number of shoppers because they will come for both types of shops.
With reference to my shopping transect, looking at my questionnaire results, figures 2a and 2b, I can see how the type of shopping people are doing in each location varies. In Chichester, 33% of people were shopping for clothes, and home wear and electrical coming next with 20% each. 17% of people were there for other reasons as well as shopping which included hair dresser appointments, visiting the local attractions and visiting the bank. Very few people were there to buy daily necessities or food, 7% and 3% respectively.
In East Wittering most people, 33%, were shopping for food, and 27% of people where there for daily necessities. Not many people were there for clothes or home wear, 13% and 7%, and no one was there to shop for electrical items. 20% of people had come for other reasons as well which included, unsurprisingly, visiting the beach, going to the bank and eating at a café.
From these results I can see that most people shop very differently in each location. Chichester is a more comparison based shopping centre whilst people in East Wittering are mostly shopping for convenience goods. People want to have a greater choice and variety when shopping for their high-order goods and so there will be lots of comparison shops also with many magnet stores in Chichester. When shopping for low-order goods people want to be able to get all of their daily necessities from one place and so there is at least one large supermarket in a town with a small number of comparison shops to give more variety like in East Wittering.
Conclusion
Overall from my data I think that I have proved my hypothesis, There is a larger variety of shops on Chichester High Street than East Wittering High Street, so more people will travel further, but less often, to shop there, to be true. The main pieces of evidence that allow me to do this are my questionnaire results because they give me a variety of data that helps me to answer all my key questions. I can answer that more people will be attracted to a shopping area if it has a large variety of different types of shops, but will shops there less often if it has a high number of comparison shops in which high order goods are sold because people only buy these occasionally rather than low-order which are bought daily. I see that Chichester fits this first group and East Wittering the second, so I can prove that Chichester has a wider range of shops, and that people will shop here less often but, using the data on my Chloropleth maps, travel further to get there than East Wittering. This proves my hypothesis to be true.
Evaluation
When looking at my data, and then the conclusion of my Chapter 4, I see that I proved my hypothesis, (There is a larger variety of shops on Chichester High Street than East Wittering High Street, so more people will travel further, but less often, to shop there), true.
I believe my results to accurate as I think that I got, with the time I had, a very fair representation of the populations of both locations. I was surprised not to get any anomalies because of the locations of my investigation and the popularity of both places as tourist interest. Also, my results support my hypothesis to a surprising degree and I wasn't expecting this much agreement between the data and my prediction. Regardless, I think that if I could re-collect my data to do the investigation again, I would collect it at wider variety of times of the day and more spread out over a couple of months, especially for my questionnaire so that I had an even wider spread of the data representation. I think that I did collect enough data from my investigation and that it was a fair representation of the population of each location. Despite this, I did have a few problems when collecting my data, many people did not want to answer questions from someone in the street and the questionnaires took a long time because of this. I also found that a few people were reluctant to give their postcode to a stranger in the street, and that their questionnaire was unfinished because of this. If I had longer to do the investigation I would have tried to think up another way to ask people where they were travelling from without them having to give out sensitive data. To further improve the accuracy of my questionnaire, I could re-write it to provide more options for the closed questions. This would allow people to be more truthful with their answer and not change it to suit one of my choices.
I also had a few problems with my EQI becoming biased, but overcame this by having another person with me so we could compare our opinions of the environment. If I could spend longer on the investigation I would probably collect data from all seasons as well as comparing my two locations to others of similar size and placement to get a more rounded example of shopping.
With my photos, being only taken on one day in each location, I cannot see how the streets may look different in different lights or weathers and how this may affect the attractiveness of the street. To overcome this, if I repeated the investigation, I could take a variety of photos in different seasons to get the better idea of what the overall attractiveness of the street is like.
My shopping transect is also not a fully fair representation of Chichester as I only looked at one street out of the four and the different streets will have different types of shops on them. For example there are a high number of banks on the street that I looked at, but there may be no other banks in the whole of the town, which makes me assume that different shops in the other streets compared to the data I collected on the street I was investigating. I understand that this lowers my validity.
Overall I think that my investigation was a success and that I managed to prove my hypothesis true. However this may be an incorrect assumption from biased data because it was only collected over one month and I assume that only certain people have answered the questionnaire. The high streets may have had a sudden rush of people when I was doing my pedestrian counts or there may have been some kind of event which cleared the streets. Anything could have made the results inaccurate. To find out if these results really are true, I, or someone else, would have to complete another investigation which they could then compare to my own to find out whether more people really do shop in Chichester because of its variety of shops or whether it's just the closest one.
Bibliography
Chichester Bus Routes
Link Route 51: Selsey – Hunston – Sidlesham – Chichester EVERY 15 MINS
Circuit Route 52 & 53: Chichester – Birdham – East Wittering – West Wittering EVERY 15 MINS
Heart Route 55: Tanglemere – Boxgrove – St. Richards Hospital – Chichester
Coastliner 700: Southsea – Portsmouth – Havant – Chichester – Bognor Regis – Little Hampton – Worthing – Shoreham – Hove – Brighton
Stagecoach Service 60: Midhurst – Holmbush Way – Cocking – Lavant – Chichester – Pagham – Bognor Regis EVERY 15 MINS
Compass Route 99: Petworth – Upwaltham – Chichester ABOUT EVERY 1 HOUR 45 MINS
Compass Route 15: Clapham Village - Angmering – Arundel – Barnham – Chichester WEDNESDAYS ONLY 9.50
Compass Route 650: Chichester – North Mundham – Hunston - Donnington - Chichester
Emsworth and District 11: Thorney – Westborne - Chichester EVERY 2 HOURS
East Wittering Bus Route
Compass Travel 150: West Itchenor – East Wittering – Bracklesham – Selsey ABOUT EVERY 1½ HOURS
Compass Travel 103: Selsey – East Wittering - West Itchenor