L’out-shopper peut-il être un consommateur local ? Etude des pratiques de consommation transfrontalière dans le pôle européen de développement de Longwy-Alzette-Belval

Border Region

Longwy-Alzette-Belval

Language(s)

Français

Type

Note on a scientific paper, a conference paper, etc.

Main Category

Regional Development – Sustainability

Introduction

This study aims to better understand the cross-border consumer’s “out-shopping” behaviors.

Summary

This study aims to better understand the cross-border consumer’s “out-shopping” behaviors. The research focusses on the particular border space extending from the Arlon region of Belgium, through Longwy in France, to the south of Luxembourg. Based on an analytical construct of psychological characteristics drawn from the literature, a number of consumer profiles are derived from a series of semi-directed interviews with a set of 15 consumers from 3 different countries. Preliminary results point to 3 distinct types of border area consumers, namely, the rather local consumer, the rather global consumer, and a third glocal consumer who buys as much in their own territories as in more distant ones.

Content

The border space around Longwy (France-Belgium-Luxembourg) is particularly interesting: very permeable, the border region traverses very heavily populated and urbanized areas, particularly in the west, built up around the three originally steel-producing districts of the European Development Pole in Longwy, France (approx. 120,000 residents), Arlon in Belgium (approx. 50,000 residents), and Luxembourg’s Alzette-Belval development (122,000 residents) (Statec, 2016). These borders are traversed on a daily basis and therefore are especially well-adapted to our research interests into the contexts of trans-national consumer activity. The purpose of this study is to profile consumers living in cross-border regions who roam outside of their own home territories for both professional and non-professional reasons, what the literature on the subject calls “out-shoppers”. An out-shopper is defined as a consumer who does their shopping outside of the catchment area (Herrman and Beik, 1968) usually defined in relation to home. Thus, the following research questions arise: which are the profiles of consumers who prefer such forms of out-shopping over purchases that tend to be made in the catchment areas around their own home? What is the ratios of such local or cross-border purchases according especially to the relative type of products in each case.

To respond to such questions, a qualitative study of semi-directed interviews was conducted with fifteen different consumers. The first steps of this project involved the review of current literature on the behavior of consumers outside the catchment areas around their home, what is called out-shopping. We then proceed with an account and justification of our methodologies, before reporting on the principal findings of the research. The conclusion, finally, allows us to present a theoretical model and to discuss the contributions and limitations of this preliminary study as well as the need for further related studies.

Conclusions

While the research in this field remains at this point in the exploratory stages, there are already several managerial implications to be drawn from the results. From the distributors’ point of view, one would have to review what stores tend to stock in relation to the specific needs of potential consumers from neighboring countries and by way of a fine-grained analysis of the particular kinds of products bought by particular nationalities. Thus, the foregrounding of national identities in the products on offer and in the communications strategies employed might well be made to better reflect the expectations of both national and transrnational buyers who are attentive to the choice of the most adequate country for specific product categories. Further thought might also be given to decisions made about the choice of the product assortment, about the hiring of trilingual in-store staff, and about communication strategies (whether in print or on signage) in the neighboring countries.

More generally, this study testifies to the need to develop cross-border distribution strategies that speak, not only anymore only to local catchment areas, but to the trajectories of cross-border workers moving to and from work and home, as well as to leisure trips. Conclusions might in this sense be drawn regarding strategies locations and transportation. Moreover, recent contacts made with distributors working in the heart of the border triangle suggest that the logic and strategy of retailers in this particular area have largely confined themselves to the local economies without taking into account consumers from neighboring countries (particularly with regards to those highly integrated structures in which a centralized acquisitions department, and so the decision making power, is relatively far away from the border zones in question). Further research in this area will have to engage with retail managers and cross-border distribution directors. Furthermore, in order to determine the more dominant of the three consumer profiles, a quantitative study would appear to be necessary in order to more precisely determine the specific strategies that might be designed for retail distributors located in such cross-border areas. Finally, alongside such a quantitative study, and in order to improve the external validity of the research project as a whole, it would be necessary to study the behavior of consumers from other cross-border zones, for example, between France and Germany, France and Italy, or France and Spain.

Lead

Helene Yildiz, Béatrice Siadou and Sandrine Heitz-Spahn

Links

https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02174160.html

Keywords

Contact Person(s)