Most shopping centres commission a major research study every few years to track their catchment areas, market position, shopper attitudes to the centre and tenant mix.

These studies are expensive, and are usually done in isolation, focussing on the centres primary and secondary catchment areas.

But these days, shoppers increasingly use more than one centre for their shopping needs, and in the more affluent  areas, shoppers use a whole range of centres for different thing

In order to improve the quality and scope of shopping centre studies, Douglas Parker Associates has introduced a syndicated (or multi-client) study that covers all the major shopping centres in each metro area each year.

Being multi-client, the cost is substantially cheaper than individually commissioned projects, the regular annual frequency provides a clear guide to trends, and the ability to compare centres against each other provides a very useful dimension.

Also measured in the study is a breakdown of consumer expenditure across a broad range of categories, so it is possible to estimate each shopping centres share of the total metro market for each of these categories.

Douglas Parker Associates uses its Consumer Laboratory for these studies, which contains a wealth of information on personal and household lifestyles, and is perfect for tracking switching behaviour over time.