Shopping Habits and Income: A Philadelphia Department Store Study

Abstract

ARECENT study1 has been made of a cross section of all the credit customers of a large Philadelphia department store. The analysis was based on 467 personal interviews in Philadelphia County, on 320 mail questionnaires returned by patrons in the trading area outside Philadelphia, and on an examination of store records. The study has contributed new data on some fundamental problems of shopping behavior. Primary emphasis was placed on family characteristics (such as income, number of members, and age of buyers) and on expenditure data (such as number and location of credit accounts in five department stores, cash vs. credit expenditures at each, and the relative amount of total expenditures at each). Only the data pertaining to primary shopping habits and to income will be covered in this article.