Browsing by Author "Nuutinen, Minna"

Grocery shops are essential part of everyday life and that is why good accessibility to grocery shops is a basic necessity for a successful everyday. Good accessibility is also important from the environmental point of view because accessibility should be good for those who travel by foot, by bike or by public transportation. However, the structural change of grocery shops in Finland has led to decreased number of shops in the urban area. The aim of this research was to find out what the consumers think about the accessibility of grocery shops in Helsinki. In addition, the aim was also to find out what factors affect the experiences of accessibility and do people experience accessibility differently because of their background. The accessibility factors, which are the environment factors, the features of the grocery shops and the characters of the consumers, have been studied. One research question was, that are there regional differences in the experiences. The research data was collected in January and February 2013 by internet questionnaire. In the questionnaire the respondents were asked which accessibility factors affected problems during the last visit to grocery shop and what do they think about the accessibility of grocery shops. 14000 people living in Helsinki were collected by random sample from the consumer register of SOK (Suomen Osuuskauppojen Keskuskunta). 1400 of them answered the questionnaire and 1378 answers were analysed. The results were analysed by statistical program by using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U-tests and crosstabs. According to the results, bad weather affected the most during the journey to the shop because nearly half of the respondents experienced at least little problems. The wintery weather, which means icy and snowy roads, had an effect on the results. The second and third factors which caused problems were heavy shopping bags and difficult route. The other factors mentioned in the questionnaire affected problems for less than ten per cent of the respondents. In the shop, the most difficult factor was the location of the products which means that the products were for example too high on the shelves. The insufficient selection of goods and the interior of the shops also affected problems to more than 30 per cent of the respondents. The other factors caused problems to less than 20 per cent of the respondents. The results show that the features of the shops caused more problems than environment factors. The background of the respondents had an effect on the experienced accessibility. There are statistically significant differences between age groups, between physically disabled and non-disabled persons and between those who used different vehicles. There are also differences between men and women, between different income groups and between those who went to different chain stores. According to the results, physically disabled, young, women, those living in a low-income household and those using other vehicle than car, experienced more problems in accessibility than the control groups. Also those who went to a small grocery shops had more problems than those who went to a larger shop. In addition, there are regional differences in the experiences because in the central major district people experienced more difficulties because of the features of shops than people in other major districts. In the central major districts the shops are mainly smaller than elsewhere in the urban area. The accessibility of the grocery shops can be considered to be good in Helsinki because most of the respondents did not experience difficulties during their journey to the grocery shops. Most of them who had problems, said that there were only little or some problems. However, we should not forget those who had major problems during their journey.