Shops | “A warm, free parking garage is an absolute requirement” – This is how motorists describe their choice of shopping location

Many people living in the capital region consider it very important that the store can be easily reached by car. This is evident from the survey conducted by HS.

The survey was published on Sunday from the shopping center in Vantaa A story about Jumbo-Flamingo in connection with. According to the story, one of the secrets of the shopping center’s success is meeting the needs of motorists.

The survey inquired about the effect of driving on the choice of shopping place. The survey received a total of more than 1,200 responses.

In the story, quotes have been used only from respondents whose identity is known to the editor.

For the survey almost without exception and regardless of where they live, the motorists who answered thought it important to be able to get to the store smoothly by car. Even several people who live in the inner city of Helsinki say that they always make larger purchases by car.

Many said that they usually do business in shopping centers located further away, which are easy to drive to and have free parking spaces. The respondents found carrying large purchases without a car difficult, paid parking annoying and public transport too slow and expensive. The costs of driving were not emphasized much in the answers.

For example, a 65-year-old man from Tölö who answered the survey says that he goes by car once a week to shop at Sello or Jumbo.

The idea that you have to drag everything from the vacuum cleaner to the bus and from there to another bus before you get home is unbearable even for a rough manhe writes.

A 48-year-old woman from Helsinki is on the same lines, who says that she always chooses a shopping center based on where it is easiest and fastest to get to by car. He could consider using the public ones more if their one-time tickets weren’t “annoyingly expensive”.

This is what a 44-year-old man from Espoo writes:

“We go to the grocery store a couple of times a week and always by car. A warm free parking garage is an absolute requirement. It wouldn’t even occur to me to carry several heavy shopping bags home on public transport.”

Helsinki research director of the university’s Consumer Research Center Petteri Repo considers the answers to HS’s survey to be understandable. According to him, accessibility by car is important for many consumers, as transporting large purchases without a car is usually difficult.

According to Revo, it is difficult to moralize motorists who shop for food, because especially for families with children, a car can bring significant flexibility to busy everyday life. With a car, you often buy more at once, so you don’t have to visit the store as often.

“You often go to the store by car with a different attitude; we might stay there longer, make bigger purchases or go shopping with the whole family,” he says.

“And not everyone wants or has time to go to the store every day.”

According to Revo, instead of focusing on driving or carlessness, it would be more important to think about how people generally get from one place to another and how everyday life is organized.

“For example, public transport does not always work perfectly, even in the capital region”, he states.

of HS the survey was also answered by several people without a car. Understandably, these respondents considered the most important factor to be whether the store can be accessed smoothly by public transport.

Some of the respondents without a car are ready to go far to do things, if the public connections there are better. One of them is a 24-year-old woman from Vantaa who writes like this:

I don’t own a car. The most important thing for me is good public transportation. Even though Jumbo is the closest shopping center to me in kilometers, I prefer to go to Tripla, because it’s easiest and even faster to go there with the ring train.

According to the respondents, transportation is also possible without a car if necessary. For example, a 36-year-old woman from Espoo says that she uses home delivery services or rents a car to purchase larger items.