Convenience

 Original Research Question:  

The rise and fall of indoor shopping centers. How can the architecture and design field reinvent the in-person hospitality/retail experience as it battles online shopping convenience? 

Research Question Revision 1: (Week 4)

The rise and fall of indoor shopping centers: RE-development and RE-branding of convenience.

Research Question Revision 2: (Week 5)

Defining Convenience: How travel, money, time, and space impact the future of retail and mixed-use development.

The perception of convenience is directly relative to the activity we wish to complete. How 'convenience' is defined can categorically fall into several approaches. For this research investigation, this paper will focus on one or more of the following categories: time, money, travel, service, and space.

In their research "Spatial convenience: Bridging the gap between shopping malls and shopping strips", Vaughan Reimers and Val Clulow analyzed shopping center spatial layouts and found two convenience patterns. The first is the proximity between customers and storefronts. The idea is that minimizing the distance between storefronts, the path of travel is reduced, therefore increased convenience. They refer to it as "intra-center spatial convenience." The second concentration is the travel from the car to the center itself. We will look into this in a later post. Diving deeper into their findings, Reimers and Clulow evaluate four attributes within the "intra-center spatial convenience": the center's size, offerings or amenities, store compatibility, and its layout. While this paper compares shopping centers and strip malls, they make valid observations within the convenience context as they explore these attributes (Reimers and Clulow, 2009). Further investigation into this construct will provide greater insight into the four categories of intra-center spatial convenience, as mentioned above.

Literature Review - Reimers, V., & Clulow, V. (2014). Spatial convenience: Bridging the gap between shopping malls and shopping strips. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 42(10), 864-883. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJRDM-08-2013-0153

Another aspect of convenience is service. Alison Elizabeth Lloyd, Ricky Y.K. Chan, Leslie S.C. Yip, Andrew Chan published a paper in the Journal of Services Marketing explaining the non-monetary impact value has on the purchasing experience. They break down service convenience into five categories: decision convenience, access convenience, transaction convenience, benefit convenience, and post-benefit convenience.  

This analysis directly ties to retail and hospitality markets, especially hospitality, as its focus is to provide a specific service to customers. Service convenience is key for shopping centers with a diverse service and product offering.  Their research correlates service convenience and time convenience with the viewpoint that how an "individual approaches time influences their perceptions of service convenience and the shopping experience." (Lloyd, Chan, Yip, Chan, 2014) Further investigation into this construct will provide greater insight into the five categories of service convenience, as mentioned above.

Literature Review - Elizabeth Lloyd, A., Y.K. Chan, R., S.C. Yip, L. and Chan, A. (2014), "Time buying and time saving: effects on service convenience and the shopping experience at the mall", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 36-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-03-2012-0065