Des modes d'achats différenciés
Differentiated purchasing habits
The observation of the recent evolution of purchasing habits for food products in post-socialist Central European Countries (Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) shows the lack of homogenization. The persistence of structural differences between these countries is due to the variety of structures in their domestic economy, in particular the motorization degree of households and women’s professional activity level.
The example of the influence of the motorization degree and women’s professional activity level.
As an illustration, let’s take as parameters the motorization degree of households and women’s professional activity level. Their variability largely explains the differences of consumer habits.
- Concerning the motorization degree of households, one should use as an indication the percentage of households equipped with at least one car. To measure women’s professional activity level, it is better not to use their activity rate but their employment rate, which is the percentage of women older than 15 having a job: this allows a better dissociation between professional and domestic time.
- This analysis shows that the use of a car and the frequentation of mass consumption formulas go hand in hand and result from the same technological choice aiming at saving time and this, the more the temporal constraint, in particular for women, is strong. One could also integrate into this analysis the influence of the cultural factor, measured by the utility function associated to the domestic activity of food product purchases, being different for each kind of consumer.
- Thus, what differentiates a country like Hungary from others is the weight increase of proximate points of sales in a strict sense (traditional stores and mini-markets) as well as in a broad sense (including discount shops, as to their relative position in these countries). Yet, the opposite table shows quite clear differences in structures of points of sales in the region, which surprises all those who counted on an homogenization of purchasing behaviors in these economies. Each market requires, in fact, a refined approach.
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