Food Shopping Practices of Upper Income

strongly influenced by household size and varied inversely with shopping fre quency. Frequency Shopping frequency was related pri marily to household size and less sig nificantly to the wife's incidence and extent of gainful employment or age. Members of large households shopped more often than the average, and em ployed homemakers shopped less often. Shopping frequency increased with age of the wife in the lower age range. Food Shopping Practices of Upper However, shopping frequency dimin ished with age among older women. Income Families in Minneapolis-St. Paul Time of Day We found relatively minor variations Maria Thiele-Wittig and Marguerite C. Burk in the distribution of shopping trips This article, the third in a series, re Costs of handling frequent small or among parts of the day: 28 percent be ports results of a study of upper income ders, keeping stores open for long fore noon, 24 percent from noon to 3 families in Minneapolis-St. Paul.' To be hours, and coping with concentrated p.m., 30 percent from 3 to 6 p.m., and 18 included in the survey, husband and shopping in limited time periods add to percent after 6 p.m. wife families had to have a minimum the marketing margin for farm com Factors related to timing of shopping gross income level of $8,000 in 1964 and modities. Knowledge of food shopping during the day were: (1) stage in the larger families had to have $10,000. practices is also useful for consumer family life cycle, (2) social placement," The following types of grocery shop education. These practices are related to and (3) incidence and extent of the ping practices were considered: efficiencies in consumership. wife's employment. Morning and even In brief, the upper income families ing shoppers differed most in these 1. The frequency of shopping trips surveyed in Minneapolis-St. Paul in characteristics. Shopping in the late af defined by the number of stores actually spring 1965 averaged between three and ternoon appeared to be a convenient visited in a week. four shopping trips to acquire their practice for families with varied char 2. The actual timing of these shop week's food supply. They spread these acteristics, the only one in common ping trips over the week and during shopping trips over 2 or 3 days and tending to be smaller household size. the day. went to two or three different stores. Morning shopping was significantly Only one-fifth of all trips were made associated with higher social placement. :3. The amounts spent on the grocery as second or third trips on a particular Families with children, especially shopping expeditions. day. Less than a third of all trips in young children, were likely to shop in the week were repeat trips to a par 4. The family member or members the morning; families without children ticular store. Shopping frequency varied actually doing the shopping. tended to shop in the late afternoon or from 1 to 11 trips. And we found much evening. Wives employed part or full 5. Types of retail food stores visited. less concentration of shopping than we time were major evening shoppers. expected (see table 1). In our analy:;is, we examined the re lationships of several socioeconomic Table 1. Percentage distribution of factors to the shopping patterns of each Expendi!u!."es. F!."eque!!.cy. and Tim upper income Minneapolis-St. Paul family in the week preceding inter ing of Shopping Trips families by number of shopping vic·ws. Our way of studying food shop Expenditures trips, shopping days, and different ping practices differed from that usually stores visited in a week employed. While we asked homemakers Total expenditures in food stores, in to provide information on every visit cluding nonfood purchases, averaged Shopping Shopping DiHerent to a store for groceries in the week sur $54 per family. These upper income Number :rips days st::>res vc·ycd, most studies asked the home families spent, on an average, some ---~------------- -----------· ~------------ maker about her "typical" or "most what less than $10 per shopping trip. - - percent of families -- usual" practice. Small shopping trips of less than $2.50 1 13 18 25 Food shopping practices of upper in were frequent, representing about a 2 23 30 26 come families are studied to obtain third of all shopping trips. But less than 3 25 27 20 knowledge of factors related to the de a tenth of all shopping trips showed ex 4 18 16 15 llJand for several types of food market penditures of $25 or above. Although 5-7 18 J, iJ tg services supplied by retail stores. more than half of the upper income 9 families made one or more trips of the 8-11 3 described small size, only about a 'Expenditures for all foods and for meats, Total 100 100 100 Poultry, and fish were reported in the Janu fourth had a trip of $25 or more. "rv and August 196G issues of Minnesota Fann Business Notes. The survey is described brief- We found no clear relationship be 1.' at the end of this article. tween incidence of shopping of specified Mention of con1n1ercial narnes in this pub 'Measured by the Hollingshead index of lil·aUon is for convenience only: no enclorse trip sizes and income. However, average social position \Vhich is based on the hus nH~ni of finns nan1ed is intended, nor is criti band's years of schooling and the ranking of eism ilnplicd of t.hose not Jnentioned. expenditures per shopping trip were his occupation. PAGE 2 FARM BUSINESS NOTES JUNE 1967 Shopping Days Table 2. Expenditures on shopping trips for each day of the week by upper income Minneapolis-St. Paul families Larger proportions of the week's trips were made on Friday and Saturday than on other weekdays. But a fifth of Proportion of the families reported some shopping in total Average Average Day expenditures* expenditurest trip size* the early part of the week; a compara ble number shopped in the middle of percent dollars the week. Sunday ......... 1 2.72 2.28 Average expenditure per trip in Monday .............. 9 6.77 5.79 creased successively from Sunday to Tuesday ...................................................... 10 8.01 6.93 Friday and declined slightly on Satur Wednesday ......................................... 14 10.04 8.06 day (table 2). Half of the week's grocer Thursday .................................................. 15 10.70 8.98 Friday......... ....................... 26 14.63 11.81 ies was bought on Friday or Saturday. Saturday .............. 25 14.68 10.28 Families of medium size and whose heads were under 45 years of age *Total expenditures of all respondents combined. shopped more in the early part of the t Average expenditures of respondents who did any shopping on respective day. week than other families. In these fam *Average expenditures per shopping trip on the respective day. ilies, the wife often was employed part time and shopping frequency was rela Table 3. Proportions of total shopping trips and total shopping expendi tively low. Moreover, higher social tures in a week in different types of stores by upper income Minne position and a high level of education of apolis-St. Paul fammes the wife apparently were associated with shopping early in the week. Proportion of Proportion of Large, young families with full-time total shopping total homemakers were frequent shoppers. Store type trips expend;tures Although they spread their shopping over most parts of the week, they ---- percent ---- tended to shop heavily in the middle of Grocery chainstores: Red Owl (regional chain) . ..................... 17 22 the week. National Food, Del Farm (regional chain) . 4 6 Older families, which were generally Kroger (national chain) .......................................... 4 6 of smaller size, usually had the lowest National Tea (national chain) .............................. 1 1 shopping frequency and timed their Applebaum's (local chain) 3 4 shopping for Friday. Relatively few Country Club (local chain) ................................... 4 5 wives in these families were employed. Penny's (local chain) . 6 8 If the wife was employed or the house Cooperative and voluntary affiliated stores: hold was larger, Saturday shopping was Super Valu (voluntary) ....................................... 6 7 more frequent. Big Ten, IGA, etc. (voluntary) . 3 3 Fairway, Super Fair (cooperative) 2 2 Who Shops? Supermarkets in discount houses . 5 9 The wife, either alone or with other Independent grocery stores: Hove's, Lunds . 6 8 family members, generally took the ma Grocery stores ..... 20 13 jor responsibility for grocery shopping. Bakeries and dairy stores . 11 2 She was involved in about three fourths of all shopping trips; these trips Other stores ..... 7 4 usually constituted the major part of Missing data the individual family's shopping. The husband was involved in only a Total 100 100 fourth of all shopping trips. Trips by the husband alone generally were sup plementary trips. If both the husband and wife shopped, they tended to do High social position practically pre most of the :week's shopping together. cluded shopping by the husband, re Children were involved in one-fourth flecting perhaps the long hours worked of the shopping trips, usually in the by men in professional and managerial company of a parent. positions. Family composition greatly deter mined the identity of the shopper. The Where They Shop family's position in the family life cycle also apparently affected the incidence Upper income families were heavy Prepared by the Department of Agricultural of shopping by different family mem users of chainstores. But they also Economics and the Agricultural Extension bers. In families with young children, made some purchases at smaller, in Service. the wife normally took children along dependent, grocery stores and they pa on at least some shopping trips.

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