• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.97-115
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to investigate the spatial pattern of retail services and the consumer behaviors. For the purpose we select Jeju Island as the study area, because it retains relatively little distorted retail service systems by it's locational isolation. The retail service systems comprise three types: large-scale modern marts, conventional markets, and periodic markets. This study attempts to examine the interrelationships between these three different types, of retail services, and to figure out the spatial characteristics of consumer behaviors for each of them. We performed questionnaire surveys for getting the data of consumer behaviors. We applied several statistical methods to analyze the survey data. Most of retail services are located in two urban centers, Jeju City and Seoguipo City. We found that the locations of retail services are determined strongly by population size. The selection of market type and the location to go for shopping are related strongly with the types of goods. However, there is a wide difference in the consumer behaviors according to the consumer's socio-economic characteristics. Young wives tend to go shopping to large-scale marts in Jeju City which is the higher level central place, while old wives go shopping to conventional markets and periodic markets. They also show different shopping behaviors according to the household income levels. Low income groups prefer to go conventional markets located near to their residence, middle income groups go to large-scale marts in Jeju, and high income group go out of the Jeju Island. However, the consumer behavior does not show big difference according to the size of family. There are also no difference in the selection for shopping location according to the consumer's resident locations.