Diversification of Customer Shopping Styles as a Result of Changes in the Weekly Work Schedules of Retail Outlets

The article presents the results of three studies conducted by the author concerning the preferences of retail outlet customers with regard to the days of the week on which they most frequently purchase general food and non-food merchandise. This issue has become relevant within the context of the enactment of the Act of 10 January 2018 on limiting trade on Sundays, holidays and certain other days. Previous customer shopping styles as regards weekly shopping schedules must have changed. The aim of the article is to identify consumers’ habits and their changes concerning the weekly shopping schedules before and after the Act implementation. The results are based on direct surveys conducted in 2014, 2016 and 2018 among customers in Podkarpackie Province. A descriptive analysis of the results is supported by the statistical test chi square usage. It may be concluded that both in relation to food and non-food merchandise, the implementation of the Act resulted in a decrease in the number of customers engaging in shopping on Sundays. In the case of food items, the shopping activity moved to Mondays and Tuesdays of the following week, the purpose being to resupply. No increase was identified in the number of customers purchasing food on Fridays or Saturdays preceding non-trading Sundays. The opposite was true for non-food merchandise, where non-trading Sundays resulted primarily in increased sales on Saturdays, with minor increases on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well. The differences in weekly shopping schedules observed between every edition of the study also proved to be more significant than those identified in the individual respondent classification groups used for the purpose of the article.