Abstract:

The shopping habits of Finnish households were studied for the first time extensively in 1975. Since then there have been changes in the structure of the retail trade, and the consumers' social and economic environment has also changed in many respects. To examine the changes in shopping habits this study was carried out again, the main objective being to survey the shopping habits in autumn 1980 and to compare the results with those of the former study as well as the changes in the social, economic and commercial environment. This paper is based on the material collected in these studies. Here, however, we concentrate on those aspects of consumer shopping habits which mainly illustrate the status of consumers in the distribution system measured by their distribution work load. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the consumers' work load in the distribution system and the changes in this work load.