Wet Markets, Supermarkets and the "Big Middle" for Food Retailing in Developing Countries: Evidence from Thailand

Matthew Gorton, Johannes Sauer and Pajaree Supatpongkul

World Development, 2011, vol. 39, issue 9, 1624-1637

Abstract: Summary Drawing on the Big Middle theory of retail evolution, an analysis of secondary and primary survey data on Thai shopping behavior seeks to understand the shift away from wet markets to supermarkets. On all salient attributes affecting retail outlet choice, supermarkets outperform wet markets. While wet markets continue to account for the majority of expenditure on fresh produce their market share has eroded sharply. A bootstrapped bivariate ordered probit model identifies the characteristics of supermarket and wet market shoppers. The analysis questions previous work which perceived wet markets in East Asia as possessing a long-term competitive advantage in food retailing.

Keywords: food; retailing; supermarkets; wet; markets; Asia; Thailand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X11000246
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:39:y:2011:i:9:p:1624-1637

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().