Background

For ages people have commuted to work, or to other activities, located outside their home municipality. Statements found indicate that the basic decision for commuting are based on utility maximisation and no matter what the character of the benefit is; it should be higher than what can be found closer to the home location. This thesis aims to investigate if people are also commuting with the purpose of obtaining benefits from shopping.

The shopping location will in this thesis be defined as a shopping mall. In order for shopping malls to attract customers and create awareness of which benefits they offer they must engage in branding. The authors of this thesis have chosen to investigate the terms; shopping, commuting and branding separately in order to find a definition for the term commuter shopping and to create understanding for what makes people engage in commuter shopping.

Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to understand how the term commuter can be translated into the context of shopping. Moreover, the goal is also to identify the reasons for why people are willing to commute to a shopping destination not closest to their home location. The authors will also provide a definition for the term commuter shopping.

Method

In order to fulfil the purpose of this thesis, an abductive research approach was used. This includes a mixed method research, which allows both qualitative and quantitative data to be represented. The quantitative data in this research consist of a survey conducted at a shopping mall in Jönköping called A6 Center and used a sample of 402 customers as respondents. The qualitative part of the research includes an interview with A6 Center’s Centre Manager Kristoffer Krantz.

The main source of information, however, is the collection of secondary data within the fields of commuting, shopping malls and branding which are combined in order to provide a definition of commuter shopping.

Conclusion

The study contributes with understanding in the fields of research to the extent that means one can translate the term commuting into the context of shopping. Moreover, the thesis managed to identify the reasons for why people engage in commuter shopping and which attributes they value at a shopping location. As a result the thesis propose a definition: “Commuter shopping is when one or more people go to a shopping location, not closest to their home location, in order to obtain benefits satisfied by attributes offered.”