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Abstract
Over the last decade, pasar malam or night markets have been making their presence felt within the suburban public housing estates in Singapore. Similarly, suburban shopping centres have been sprouting up within public housing estates and situated next to mass rapid transit (MRT) and light rail transit (LRT) stations, bus stops and interchanges. Both pasar malam and suburban shopping centres belong to different components of the retail marketing system: the former belong to the bazaar sector while the latter belong to the firm-centred sector. In view of their differences, using a sequential mixed method approach involving a qualitative/quantitative sequence, this paper examines the different profiles of the shoppers and the link to their perceptions of different types of retail development. The findings suggest that property developers and retailers need to have a better understanding of their local markets in order to develop an appropriate 'experience'/product mix to cater for the shoppers within the catchment area.
Keywords:
perceptions, suburban shopping centres, night markets, Singapore, shoppers, demographics
BACKGROUND
The economies operating in the world can be generally classified into either firm-centred economies or bazaar economies. The firm-centred economy is 'where trade and industry occur through a set of impersonally defined social institutions which organise a variety of specialised occupations with respect to some particular production or distributive end'.1 The bazaar economy is one in which the total flow of commerce is fragmented into a very great number of unrelated person-to-person transactions. This sort of economy is based on the independent activities of a set of highly competitive commodity traders who relate to one another mainly by means of an incredible volume of ad hoc acts of exchange.2
Firm-centred and bazaar economies
The main distinction between the two sectors is that the firm-centred sector is capital intensive whereas the bazaar sector is labour intensive. Another significant distinction is that the former is, by organisation and character, sedentary, while the latter is mobile. By definition, mobility in the bazaar sector is a mark of differentiation that distinguishes it from its sedentary firm-centred counterpart.3
McGee's three-stage model
Depending on the stage of economic development, a country can have both these components of the economy existing in equilibrium, or with one in decline and the other thriving. According...