Purpose To provide empirical evidence and explanation of the phenomenon that providers of home delivery of groceries are still of minor importance in highly concentrated retail markets. Design/methodology/approach Based on a critical literature review three propositions were set up. A web based survey was conducted with two prospective consumer groups for home delivery providers: time starved c...

OBJECTIVES To identify the most common frequency of food-purchasing patterns and relate this pattern to characteristics of individuals and families. DESIGN A customer-intercept survey was conducted in the greater Houston area, Texas, USA, in 2002. The frequency of food shopping at supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants to buy food for eating at home was assessed. SUBJECTS A total ...

Background: Obesity rates are higher among rural versus urban adolescents. To examine possible mechanisms for the rural-urban adolescent obesity disparity, we examined the direct and indirect effects of food purchasing patterns, and the home, school, and consumer food environments on dietary intake among rural adolescents. Methods: A baseline survey was conducted among adolescents in eight rura...

The labor force participation rate of women and men is converging in industrialized countries, but disparities nevertheless remain with respect to unpaid activities. Shopping for household maintenance, in particular, is a time-consuming, out-of-home activity that continues to be undertaken primarily by women, irrespective of their employment status. The present study employs panel methods to an...

This paper describes the user-centered design and evaluation process of a humanoid mobile shopping robot named TOOMAS that assists customers of home improvement stores. Three separate empirical field studies addressing the robot’s usability (according to ISO 9241-11) and acceptability (intention to use) are presented involving N = 343 test persons altogether. The first formative evaluation stud...

Past studies pointed to the fact that consumers associate a higher level of risk with non-store shopping than in-store shopping. However, with the advent of the information technology and e-commerce, shoppers are now increasingly likely to shop across multiple channels. Multi-channel integration continues to be a focus and will be a key factor driving growth onward. This paper describes the Fuz...

the conventional intervening opportunity model which is potentially a powerful analytical and probabilistic model, has been used in transportation planning to model trip distribution pattern. this model is basically suffering from two main limitations. these limitations are the assumptions that trip makers are fully aware of all available opportunities in the area and their trip lengths to all ...

An understanding of residential location choice is fundamental to behavioral models of land use, and, ultimately, travel demand. A survey of over 900 recent homebuyers in the Austin, Texas area offers valuable data on movers and their reasons for moving. This paper examines the role of access (to employment, freeways, shopping, bus services, and other opportunities) in residential home and loca...