Mall Crawler

The following survey will be used to provide data for a UMBC Information Systems research project. The research will explore shopping behavior, whether window-shopping or actively making purchases.

Why should I participate in this experiment? Imagine that you’re at the mall and you’re looking for deals on the products you love. You are walking from store to store, searching for the best stuff and watching out for sales. What if you had a smart-phone app that anticipates where you might go next and provides you coupons, right when you need them? Our research will help inform this type of technology development.

Are there any risks in participating? We do not foresee any risks beyond which you would encounter normally when mall shopping. Participation is completely voluntary.

What will you do with my information? Our research is focused on the overall behavior of shoppers, shopping patterns, and anomalies.  As UMBC students, we are required to protect your personal information. We respect your privacy and will keep your responses confidential. You are not required to give us personally identifiable information unless you are interested to receive our research results.

Okay, I’m ready to shop, what do I do? Please follow these steps and remember to record every store in your visit. (If you forgot to write one down, just enter “after #” and we will understand that it should be inserted after the #^th store you visited.) Time to Mall Crawl:

1. For each store you visit during your trip to Arundel Mills mall, number the stores in order of visitation, starting with 1 (all the stores are alphabetically ordered).

For example, if you enter the mall at Bass Pro Shop, bought a coffee at Starbucks, browsed through J.Crew, and left through Bass Pro Shop, you will fill out the following in your survey:

1. Return your survey in person or by e-mail (scanned or transcribed) to Sean Terry sterry1@umbc.edu or Dan Dutrow (dutroda1@umbc.edu), by Monday, November 19.