Weaving New Retail and Consumer Landscapes in the Scottish Borders

Abstract

New retail locations and formats and changing consumer capabilities and behaviours (including ‘switching’) have encouraged “outshopping” from rural to urban areas. Rural areas have been suffering from a decline in the provision of services, including retailing. One ‘solution’ has been the strengthening of market towns in rural areas by the development of new major retail stores. The effects of this are perhaps not fully understood, particularly where the rural area comprises a network of towns rather than a single centre. Three comparable consumer surveys (1988, 1998, 2004) of shopping behaviour in the Scottish Borders are analysed. Consumer place and store switching data are used to examine the impact of new retail opportunities on shopping patterns. Two different switching strands are identified: clawback and redistribution. Redistribution within the rural network is a new finding.