Assortment overlap: Its effect on shopping patterns in a retail market when the distributions of prices and goods are known

The majority of households divide their grocery shopping between two or more stores each week. This paper examines the merchandising factors affecting the sharing of customers between stores through a pairwise analysis of their assortment overlap, price differentiation, and interstore distance. Results front a study of a market of 27 stores show that assortment overlap and interstore distance are determinants of shared patronage. Results also support hypothesized relationships concerning the differentiation of assortments and price in a spatial market.