Untitled - Cork City Council

Appendix 3 : The Surveys of Shopping Patterns
Introduction
1 Between April and early August 2007 two sets of surveys were carried out to investigate
patterns of shopping and attitudes to the various town centres in the Study Area. First, there
were on-site surveys of 1,000 people shopping in the two biggest centres - Cork City centre and
the Mahon Point shopping centre. Next there was a home-based survey, conducted by
telephone, of a sample of 1,150 households living throughout the County. Copies of the
questionnaires used are attached as Annex 1 and Annex 2.
The Shoppers Survey
2 The objective of the shopper survey was to investigate the shopping behaviour of people using
the City centre and Mahon Point, with particular reference to spending at the centres by those
living outside County Cork. This survey provides the main evidence on such imports of
expenditure from places outside the County.
3 Interviews were restricted to people who were shopping in the two centres. At Mahon Point,
shoppers were interviewed at the four main exits from the mall. In the City centre there were
four interview points along St. Patrick Street. To obtain a random sample, interviewers were
instructed to approach the first person who came along after they had finished and checked the
previous interview, without any attempt at selection. There were 402 respondents at Mahon
Point and 594 in the City centre. In both centres around 90% were female. At Mahon Point, 95%
were aged from 20 to 59 but in the City centre the age spread was wider, with 13% aged under
20 and a similar proportion aged 60 or over. The great majority of the respondents’ households
had cars – 98% at Mahon Point and 89% in the City centre – most of them having more than one
car. The distribution by social class of the household’s main income earner is given by the
following table. The white-collar proportion was higher at Mahon Point while the retired were
more prominent in the City centre.
Table 1 Social Class of Main Income Earner
Mahon Point City Centre
No of respondents 390 566
% %
Professional 14.1 11.8
Intermediate 28.2 24.2
Skilled non-manual 16.4 14.1
Skilled manual 26.9 22.3
Semi skilled 5.9 9.7
Unskilled 0.3 0.0
Military 1.8 0.5
Retired 4.4 12.5
Student 1.3 1.9
Unemployed 0.0 1.2
Other economically inactive 0.8 1.6
Total percentage 100.0 100.0
4 At Mahon Point the field-work was spread over 8 days, covering different parts of the week and
weekend, together with evening shopping periods. In the City, the spread was still wider, at 13
days, but special occasions such as the City Jazz Festival were avoided as being
unrepresentative. The survey therefore covered a wide range of conditions but in itself this was
not necessarily enough. It is a feature of surveys of this kind that the results can be affected by
the detailed distribution of the time and location of the interviews. Initial examination of the
Mahon Point results showed that there were indeed differences between the four exits and
between the days of the week, particularly regarding shoppers who came from outside the
county. These shoppers were most sparse at the exit near the supermarket, where respondents
1