In this paper, the trade area of daily shopping goods, which is an element of the internal structure of city level trade area, is analized through the shopping behavior for daily shop-ping goods. The results of this analysis can bee summarized as follows.
1) A store cluster with daily shopping goods and the first level trade area On an average, a store of daily shopping goods needs more than 150 households as the threshold population, and a store cluster with a set of daily shopping goods supplies daily needs with approximately 330 households, which form the first (the lowest) level trade area. The increase of 180 households in the first level trade area ensures the location of another set of daily shopping goods. The spatial range of the first level trade area is within the access of ten minutes on foot or within the radius of 500 meters from the center of the store cluster.
2) Some postulates on the shopping behavior for daily shopping goods The shopping behavior for daily shopping goods which arises within a city level trade area is classified into two types; the first is the behavior to a neighborhood (the nearest) store cluster, and the second is to a cluster off local and higher order store. The reason to cause such behaviors is that the consumer selects a store cluster considering not only the distance to the store cluster but also its retail function. Thus, when the consumer pur-chases daily shopping goods, two types of postulates on the shopping behavior can be recog-nized. One is a postulate that “the consumer selects the nearest store cluster” and the other is that “he selects the nearest and a higher order store cluster”. The former takes account of only one variable, distance, the latter considers two variables, distance and retail function.
3) The internal structure of city level trade area in terms of the shopping behavior for daily shopping goods
Generally, the more a neighborhood store cluster has retail functions and the farther it is from a higher order one, the more the consumer has a preference for the distance postu-late and the higher the level of self-sufficiency is in the first level trade area. On the con-trary, the less a neighborhood store cluster has retail functions and the nearer it is to a high-er order store cluster, the more the consumer has a preference for the distance-function post-ulate, the lower the level of self-sufficiency is in the first level trade area and the stronger the tendency is to form a second level trade area around a higher order store cluster In this way, it is recognized that the shopping behavior for daily shopping goods organizes the hierarchical structure with a complementary relationship between the first level trade area and the second level one. This is an element of the internal structure of city level trade area in terms of the shopping behavior for daily shopping goods.