Changing Perceptions of Urban Retail Regulation: Sundays in the German City of Cologne
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsCongratulations for the research work. However, some observations I have to made regarding the research article, in what it concerns the followings items:
- The title is well chosen being in accordance with the content
- The abstract have the in short, the description of the research, however will be advisable to mention more clear the method and model used in the research
- The keywords, could be improved by using keywords with more impact words regarding research method for a better identification
- The introduction presents the purpose and objectives of research, although, the research questions or research hypothesis are missing. The topic relevance is high in Germany as well as in the countries that have a strong work legislation regarding employees rights. The issue of Sunday trading activities restrictions in Germany and countries as Poland, Romania, UK, Netherlands, is a good argument for making a comparative study taking into account extreme stressing factors as Covid Pandemy restrictions on commerce. For this reason, the distinguished authors made technical surveys to sustain the research.
- The literature review as a distinctive part, is missing, maybe will be a good idea to present similar research works in the other authors view, with their original contribution regarding the subject.
- Research methodology is presented in a concise way. However, some suplimentary informative data about the means of reserarch, are wellcomed.
- Results and discussions underlines the practicality of the research regarding the buying habits based on both hedonist and utilitarians reasons in two period of times (2018 and 2025) The results shows that the visitors of Cologne town spent more money than the natives especialy on Sundays. The impact of digital technologies in promoting sellings in Cologne area, versus clasical mass media, is obvious, as this research proves.
- Conclussions are well presented. The mention is related with missing research hypothesis and their fullfilment or not fullfilment by doing the reserarch. Other observation is that it is a little bit generalisting, ommiting data from research to be presented as argumentative data
- The list of reference contains the sources that have been used in the research. However, will be a good idea to add some references for a better display of the subject of research
Author Response
Reviewer 1:
Congratulations for the research work. However, some observations I have to made regarding the research article, in what it concerns the followings items:
Comment:
The title is well chosen being in accordance with the content
The abstract have the in short, the description of the research, however will be advisable to mention more clear the method and model used in the research
Reply:
The abstract has been reworked to make the focus clearer and indicate the implemented methods. The methods section illustrates in a new figure the adopted research design.
Comment:
The keywords, could be improved by using keywords with more impact words regarding research method for a better identification
Reply:
While we generally agree, the article only uses t-tests and newly added, regression analysis. Thus, only the keywords "regression" and "comparative analysis" have been added.
Comment:
The introduction presents the purpose and objectives of research, although, the research questions or research hypothesis are missing. The topic relevance is high in Germany as well as in the countries that have a strong work legislation regarding employees rights. The issue of Sunday trading activities restrictions in Germany and countries as Poland, Romania, UK, Netherlands, is a good argument for making a comparative study taking into account extreme stressing factors as Covid Pandemy restrictions on commerce. For this reason, the distinguished authors made technical surveys to sustain the research.
Reply:
Thank you for this assessment.
Comment:
The literature review as a distinctive part, is missing, maybe will be a good idea to present similar research works in the other authors view, with their original contribution regarding the subject.
Research methodology is presented in a concise way. However, some suplimentary informative data about the means of reserarch, are wellcomed.
Reply:
Since Urban Science adopted the APA structure for articles (which does not include a dedicted literature review), the introduction includes a discussion of the existing literature. The abstract has been reworked and contains some additional information on the implemented methods. Otherwise the statistical methods are only briefly introduced at the end of section 2 and at the point where they are used since they are standard statistical methods.
Comment:
Results and discussions underlines the practicality of the research regarding the buying habits based on both hedonist and utilitarians reasons in two period of times (2018 and 2025) The results shows that the visitors of Cologne town spent more money than the natives especialy on Sundays. The impact of digital technologies in promoting sellings in Cologne area, versus clasical mass media, is obvious, as this research proves.
Reply:
Thank you for this assessment.
Comment:
Conclussions are well presented. The mention is related with missing research hypothesis and their fullfilment or not fullfilment by doing the reserarch. Other observation is that it is a little bit generalisting, ommiting data from research to be presented as argumentative data
Reply:
Since there is no comparable research, the study adopted an exploratory approach. This part has been made clearer in the introduction as well as in the methodological section and explicite partial research questions are formulated in the methodology section. The results of the analysis are consequently structured as answers to these research questions, which we think is the intent of the second half of this comment.
Comment:
The list of reference contains the sources that have been used in the research. However, will be a good idea to add some references for a better display of the subject of research
Reply:
Some non-scientific sources have been added but another Scopus-search revealed that the article already references all scientific studies on the topic.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe narrative in the preface is somewhat fragmented. Is it necessary to have so many paragraph breaks to the extent that nearly every sentence forms its own paragraph? I suggest that the author reorganize the narrative logic and structure the introduction section into four main paragraphs: research background, previous research progress, research gap, and research significance. This will make it easier for readers to understand the author’s intended message.
As this is a social science paper, I recommend that the author include a literature review section. In this section, key terms used in the paper (e.g., hedonism, utilitarianism, etc.) as well as the central research topic (e.g., consumer behavior/preferences in retail) should be clearly defined and discussed in depth.
Similarly, I suggest that the author add a theoretical framework proposed in previous studies as the foundation for the current research, and then use the research findings to develop their own viewpoints.
The methodology section should be more detailed. It could be divided into several subsections, including: research process, data collection, questionnaire design, and data analysis.
The results and discussion sections should be separated.
A test for common method bias should be included, as well as any preemptive control measures taken.
Tables 1 and 2 should present concrete numerical values rather than just ratios.
I recommend adding a survey using exploratory factor analysis to extract key underlying factors. This would make the reasoning presented in Table 3 more convincing.
The statistical analysis methods used should be specified in Table 3, rather than only showing effect sizes.
The statistical analysis appears too simplistic. The author might consider including gender or age as factors to test for interaction effects, and conduct a two-way MANOVA, ANCOVA, or fsQCA as appropriate.
A critical discussion approach is recommended—one that engages with previous research progress—rather than a purely descriptive narrative.
Theoretical contributions should also be considered and clearly articulated.
In the section on managerial implications, the author should provide evidence-based recommendations derived from empirical data analysis, rather than relying solely on subjective opinions.
Author Response
Reviewer 2:
Comment:
The narrative in the preface is somewhat fragmented. Is it necessary to have so many paragraph breaks to the extent that nearly every sentence forms its own paragraph? I suggest that the author reorganize the narrative logic and structure the introduction section into four main paragraphs: research background, previous research progress, research gap, and research significance. This will make it easier for readers to understand the author’s intended message.
Reply:
Where sensible paragraphs have been joined, still keeping to the stylistic rule that one paragraph should consider a single idea. Four paragraphs for the introduction would definitely oppose this rule. It could be that at this point the terms section and paragraph have gotten mixed-up because we would certainly agree that the four mentioned topics would be ideal for internally structuring the introduction. This is why this structure has already been adopted. The research gap and significance has been worked out in some more detail.
Comment:
As this is a social science paper, I recommend that the author include a literature review section. In this section, key terms used in the paper (e.g., hedonism, utilitarianism, etc.) as well as the central research topic (e.g., consumer behavior/preferences in retail) should be clearly defined and discussed in depth.
Reply:
We agree with regard to the concepts of hedonism and utilitarism and have thus introduced a short section that detail the role of both concepts in retail and in particular in attracting visitors into city centers. Since the study does not measure preferences preferences in a detail fashion as would have been the case with discrete choice experiments, a detailed discussion of theories of consumer behavior and consumer preference research would be decidedly beyond the scope of the article. Since Urban Science adopted the APA structure for articles (which does not include a dedicted literature review), the introduction includes a discussion of the existing literature. The scientific literature on the topic as has been again assured by a Scopus survey remains very limited and most grey articles on retail Sundays in Germany are already included as well.
Comment:
Similarly, I suggest that the author add a theoretical framework proposed in previous studies as the foundation for the current research, and then use the research findings to develop their own viewpoints.
Reply:
Previous studies on the topic were almost exclusively descriptive and always static and did not use any theoretical framework that could either be adopted or even been adjusted to fit the objective of this study. This aspect is stressed more clearly in the introduction. However, we agree with you that the article could profit from an illustrated theoretical framework or research design. Thus, Figure 1 has been added which summarizes the research design adopted.
Comment:
The methodology section should be more detailed. It could be divided into several subsections, including: research process, data collection, questionnaire design, and data analysis.
Reply:
While the section already covers these issues, it has been slightly reworked to better illustrate this structure. The part on the data collection process has been decidedly expanded.
Comment:
The results and discussion sections should be separated.
Reply:
With the recommendations section being the discussion of the results in regard to their practical application this has already been realized. Considering the limited scale of existing literature which would allow for a discussion comparing the results to previous ones only the study might in part quality for such a comparison. This however would be too little content to valid a separate section. Nevertheless, the general idea is taken into consideration and the results section has been slightly reworked to order it according to the newly introduced three research questions which are motivated in the methodology section and guide the research process.
Comment:
A test for common method bias should be included, as well as any preemptive control measures taken.
Reply:
A comment has been added to the methodology section that questions were displayed in random order to minimize any cmb. Additionally, the resuls of a Harman test are reported.
Comment:
Tables 1 and 2 should present concrete numerical values rather than just ratios.
Reply:
Even though it might make the tables harder to read, absolute values have been added.
Comment:
I recommend adding a survey using exploratory factor analysis to extract key underlying factors. This would make the reasoning presented in Table 3 more convincing.
Reply:
Since it did not yield any usable results and the insights possible from a factor analysis using three items might be limited at best in either case, there are no reports on this in the article.
Comment:
The statistical analysis methods used should be specified in Table 3, rather than only showing effect sizes.
Reply:
This is already reported in the paragraph preceding the table.
Comment:
The statistical analysis appears too simplistic. The author might consider including gender or age as factors to test for interaction effects, and conduct a two-way MANOVA, ANCOVA, or fsQCA as appropriate.
Reply:
We fully agree, thus the robustness of the motives is additionally assured using a multiple regressions and the robustness of the difference with regard to spendings during retail Sundays has been assured by use of an ordered probit regression. Multi-factor ANOVAs would not be suitable, since not every sub-group would report sufficient participants.
Comment:
A critical discussion approach is recommended—one that engages with previous research progress—rather than a purely descriptive narrative.
Reply:
As far as a connection to existing comparable literature is possible, i.e., the study conducted in Poland, it has already been realized. The study itself already has been using tests and since been expanded by an additional regression analysis. Thus, it can not be considered purely descriptive.
Comment:
Theoretical contributions should also be considered and clearly articulated.
Reply:
In the introduction a paragraph has been added that details the contributions and the value added of the article.
Comment:
In the section on managerial implications, the author should provide evidence-based recommendations derived from empirical data analysis, rather than relying solely on subjective opinions.
Reply:
We cannot follow this assessment since all arguments presented in the section are based on the preceding analysis and the results are solely interpreted with the two stakeholder, city marketing and retailers in mind.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper “Changing Perceptions of Retail Regulation … in Cologne” is suitable for the journal Urban Science.
The paper lacks some strength of arguments coherence and scientific soundness.
The abstract now in inappropriate, it should be revised.
The abstract need some clarification in order to highlight the main results.
Furthermore, in the abstract the main contribution of the paper should be noted.
Since the paper main topic is retail, a very practical implication /s’ should be mentioned in the abstract.
The authors should state more precisely the regulations in Germany that allow the retail working on Sunday in the sentence “Exceptions to the general rule exist in regulated form since 2003, allowing shops to 31 be opened on four Sundays per year if there is a fair taking place in the same city or quar-32 ter. However, even before 2003 exceptions could be granted, and shops were allowed lim-33 ited opening times on Sundays, e.g., on the Sundays before Christmas.“
Which deregulation rules were on state, county or city level? In the past, and new ones.
The Introduction is now not appropriate.
The introduction section should be improved by introducing literature from other countries where a lot of discussions and political „battle“ is going on.
Authors should describe it in some more EU countries.
Further the exceptions for e.g. coastal regions / cities should be described in more details.
A wider description of the influence of the syndicates and the church must be described.
Also in other countries with similar situations and big influences of the catholic church, e.g. in Croatia.
The Religious and syndical actions should bee devided and explained in Your approach.
Methodology is now not appropriate.
Now the methodology is not understandable
The sampling procedure should be explained more precisely, which technique of sampling was used, which criteria of entering the sample were needed.
The key parts about the sampling procedure are missing;
The recruitment procedure is missing.
Informed consent is missing
Who did the field research?
Why did you chose Cologne of all cities in Germay.
Who questioned ? researchers? students? An agency ?
In methodology explain the scales for variables used.
A table of the variables shown in results need at least a description (or a table).
For which cities in Germany can You relate Cologne?
How can You transfer Your results to other case studies in Germany?
In results use the part of the text “Regarding France, Maurin and Goux [21] provide a study that considers the effects 97 of the relaxation of the French shop closing law in 2016, which impacted 30 of the French 98 regions. They come to the conclusion that the amount of retail staff remains approximately 99 the same, but utilization patterns change.“ To support your paper and thesis about the necesity or reluctance to work or shop on Sundays in Cologne and then relate to other cities.
Findings from other countries should be related to Your survey.
In implications show more relations of 2018 and 2025 changes,
Compare this time frame to other EU countries and the situation in other Germany cities.
State some practical solutions for the retailers in Germany, and special tools or measures for touristic, rural, city retailers.
kind regards, the reviewer.
Author Response
Reviewer 3:
The paper “Changing Perceptions of Retail Regulation … in Cologne” is suitable for the journal Urban Science.
Comment:
The paper lacks some strength of arguments coherence and scientific soundness.
Reply:
Assuming that this comment refers to the following arguments, we address those in detail.
Comment:
The abstract now in inappropriate, it should be revised.
The abstract need some clarification in order to highlight the main results.
Furthermore, in the abstract the main contribution of the paper should be noted.
Reply:
The abstract has partially been reworked.
Comment:
Since the paper main topic is retail, a very practical implication /s’ should be mentioned in the abstract.
Reply:
Within the limited scope of words, the abstract has been reworked.
Comment:
The authors should state more precisely the regulations in Germany that allow the retail working on Sunday in the sentence “Exceptions to the general rule exist in regulated form since 2003, allowing shops to 31 be opened on four Sundays per year if there is a fair taking place in the same city or quar-32 ter. However, even before 2003 exceptions could be granted, and shops were allowed lim-33 ited opening times on Sundays, e.g., on the Sundays before Christmas.“
Reply:
In part this has already been done in the introduction. Since almost every state has a particular form of regulation presenting all of them in detail would go beyond the scope of the article. The text has however been reworked to remark on this issue in more detail and include references to the respective laws.
Comment:
Which deregulation rules were on state, county or city level? In the past, and new ones.
Reply:
This is addressed in the context of the previous comment.
Comment:
The Introduction is now not appropriate.
The introduction section should be improved by introducing literature from other countries where a lot of discussions and political „battle“ is going on.
Authors should describe it in some more EU countries.
Reply:
We cannot follow this assessment since already the situation in multiple countries is referenced. These references already cover the majority of the literature on this topic in scientific publications.
Comment:
Further the exceptions for e.g. coastal regions / cities should be described in more details.
Reply:
A respective paragraph has been added to the introduction.
Comment:
A wider description of the influence of the syndicates and the church must be described.
Reply:
The part in the introduction that touches upon this issues has been significantly expanded.
Comment:
Also in other countries with similar situations and big influences of the catholic church, e.g. in Croatia.
The Religious and syndical actions should bee devided and explained in Your approach.
Reply:
Detailing the influence of these actors in different countries countries would go beyond the scope of this article. However, an additional note with regard to Poland has been added.
Comment:
Methodology is now not appropriate.
Now the methodology is not understandable
The sampling procedure should be explained more precisely, which technique of sampling was used, which criteria of entering the sample were needed.
The key parts about the sampling procedure are missing;
The recruitment procedure is missing.
Informed consent is missing
Who did the field research?
Reply:
This is a valuable comment and the methodology section has been extended accordingly.
Comment:
Why did you chose Cologne of all cities in Germay.
Reply:
As respective justification has been added to the introduction.
Comment:
Who questioned ? researchers? students? An agency ?
Reply:
As stated above, the methdology section has been extended accordingly.
Comment:
In methodology explain the scales for variables used.
Reply:
The scales are single item scales and those are already introduced in the methodology section.
Comment:
A table of the variables shown in results need at least a description (or a table).
Reply:
This is already realized in Table 1.
Comment:
For which cities in Germany can You relate Cologne?
Reply:
This issue has been addressed within the justification of focusing on Cologne.
Comment:
How can You transfer Your results to other case studies in Germany?
Reply:
Since almost all other study have a static outlook and consider only descriptive results, a direction comparison is not possible. As far as a comparison to the comparative study considering Poland is possible it is realized at the end of the results section.
Comment:
In results use the part of the text “Regarding France, Maurin and Goux [21] provide a study that considers the effects 97 of the relaxation of the French shop closing law in 2016, which impacted 30 of the French 98 regions. They come to the conclusion that the amount of retail staff remains approximately 99 the same, but utilization patterns change.“ To support your paper and thesis about the necesity or reluctance to work or shop on Sundays in Cologne and then relate to other cities.
Reply:
We interprete this comment in the way that there should be a stronger justification of the studies focus. In this regard we can point to the expanded introduction that offers this.
Comment:
Findings from other countries should be related to Your survey.
Reply:
This already has been done in the introduction.
Comment:
In implications show more relations of 2018 and 2025 changes,
Reply:
As far a the studies allow for comparisons, they have been reported upon in the results and the conclusions section.
Comment:
Compare this time frame to other EU countries and the situation in other Germany cities.
Reply:
For the EU, i.e., Poland and Romania, where studies exist, this has already been done in the introduction. In the introduction there also is already a reference to other studies focusing on Germany.
Comment:
State some practical solutions for the retailers in Germany, and special tools or measures for touristic, rural, city retailers.
Reply:
Section 4.1 does exactly this, focusing on retailers as well as city marketing in general.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI have no more comments.
Author Response
Thank you very much
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
Thank You for the uploading of the new version of text,
some changes were made to the text but some are not.
e.i.
In the methodology section the implications of one large and one very small sample of 2018 and 2025 were not explained,
how do You find one with 1000 and one sample of 150 participants comparable ?
who were these participants, since You noted in lines 179 to 182,
... city of Cologne initiated a city festival across multiple quarters, 179
which coincided with most of the retailers in these quarters being open for business as 180
well. This unique situation offered an ideal environment to collect information on the vis- 181
itors to this festival, i.e., in how far the possibility to go shopping on a Sunday impacted 182
their decision to visit the festival. "
Which festival do You refer to,
which one in 2018 and which festival in 2025,
then the reader may get insight who were the participants and what kind of shoppers they can be
a wine, food, religious festival ?
now we do not know.
Further,
what kind of shops were open on Sundays in Cologne ? in 2018 and 2026 sure not the same ones.
because You asked in Table 2:
I am here for shopping.
I use this day to do chores that I did not yet
get to.
I am here primarily for the event.
Neither the event nor the possibility to shop
is responsible for me being here, today.
the model has only 3 questions related to both samples.
Further expanin the low level of R in table 3
0.100*** 0.110*** 0.002 0.015** 0.000 0.007
This model does not explain the participants behaviour but indicates that other variables influence their behaviour.
The limitations of the study sample size, two different a very large and very small sample not justified,
The low level of staistical significace R in the model is a limitation of the study.
the Findings from other countries are not related to the Cologne study in the discussion part,
the situation in other EU countries are not mentioned in conclusion and as limitation in the end of paper.
kind regards, the reviewer
Author Response
Dear authors,
Thank You for the uploading of the new version of text, some changes were made to the text but some are not. e.i.
Comment:
In the methodology section the implications of one large and one very small sample of 2018 and 2025 were not explained, how do You find one with 1000 and one sample of 150 participants comparable?
Reply:
While we generally agree that differently sized sample might provide a potential bias, since occurs usually only in small samples, i.e., n < 50. Since both sub-sample are above the critical sample size of 50 observations which the implemented t-test requires there are no larger biases to be expected from that side. In the regression analysis which replicates the t-test in a more general way, the observations are pooled and 1150 observations in total are well suitable for the regression analysis. Even with 150 participants and the probable population size for the study the sampling error lies below 10% which in many studies is considered a reasonable threshold.
Comment:
who were these participants, since You noted in lines 179 to 182, ... city of Cologne initiated a city festival across multiple quarters, 179 which coincided with most of the retailers in these quarters being open for business as 180 well. This unique situation offered an ideal environment to collect information on the vis- 181 itors to this festival, i.e., in how far the possibility to go shopping on a Sunday impacted 182 their decision to visit the festival. "
Reply:
We do not fully understand the commet. As stated the survey has been conducted with visitors to the festivities, i.e., during the festivities face-to-face interview were conducted with people on the street. A description of the two samples has been presented in the beginning of section 3, i.e., in Table 1.
Comment:
Which festival do You refer to, which one in 2018 and which festival in 2025, then the reader may get insight who were the participants and what kind of shoppers they can be a wine, food, religious festival ? now we do not know.
Reply:
It has not been a single festival but distributed across multiple quarters with differing types of events. The text has been slightly rewritten to make this point clearer.
Comment:
Further, what kind of shops were open on Sundays in Cologne ? in 2018 and 2026 sure not the same ones. because You asked in Table 2:
I am here for shopping. I use this day to do chores that I did not yet get to.
I am here primarily for the event.
Neither the event nor the possibility to shop
is responsible for me being here, today.
the model has only 3 questions related to both samples.
Reply:
This question is impossible to answer retrospectively. While we agree that there might have been different individual stores open at both times, reporting on all individual stores would have been a very ambitious research project in its own right since we are talking about multiple quarters of the fourth largest German city and not just shops in a single street. It can however be mentioned, that the opportunity to open their stores has been the same for all shops at both times. This last comment is added to the text.
Comment:
Further expanin the low level of R in table 3
0.100*** 0.110*** 0.002 0.015** 0.000 0.007
Reply:
The t-test already indicates there are no real changes between 2018 and 2025 for two of the three considered questions and the effect strength is higher only in one case. Both arguments are already presented in the text. Thus, the regression analysis that mirrors the t-test only in one case reports clearly significant effects (of moderate strength) and almost no low explanatory power in the other two cases. This comes at no surprise. The fact that the effect strength is not strongly increased by consideration of the sociodemographic factors and that results thus remain unchanged across gender, age and origin is already mentioned in the text.
Comment:
This model does not explain the participants behaviour but indicates that other variables influence their behaviour.
Reply:
Yes, but it also indicates that the behavior only partially changed between the two points in time which is one of the main objectives of the article. We however agree, in conjungtion with the previous comment, that the low R^2 values valid a respective comment in the text.
Comment:
The limitations of the study sample size, two different a very large and very small sample not justified,
The low level of staistical significace R in the model is a limitation of the study.
Reply:
Both aspects have been addressed above already.
Comment:
the Findings from other countries are not related to the Cologne study in the discussion part, the situation in other EU countries are not mentioned in conclusion and as limitation in the end of paper.
Reply:
As mentioned in the previous round of revisions it has been mentioned that only the study focusing on Poland has a comparable structure and thus only their results can be compared to this study. This has already been realized by the end of section 3, i.e., lines 394-397.
Comparisons to studies conducted in Cologne itself or other German cities are not comparable since they only have been conducted for a single point in time.
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
thank You for uploading the new version of the paper.
suppossing that the paper has answered to the quest of other reviewers
this paper is somewhat of better quality.
kind regards, the reviewer
Author Response
Thank you for the feedback. In the following you find the comments in how far the comments have been addressed in this round of revision or are already present in the article.
The article must be improved before it is accepted for publication. Please, and following the final indications of a reviewer, you should complete the article with the following:
Comment:
- The introduction section should be improved by introducing literature from other countries where a lot of discussions and political „battle“ is going on. Authors should describe it in some more EU countries e.g France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Portugal…. that have the same problems.
Reply:
As argued in a previous round of revision, little comparative studies focusing on the researched issue are known. However, following the comment, we have added some additionally references to study on the situation per se in other EU countries. See lines 113-117, 124-125 and 137-142. Additionally, another comparative study for Germany has been referenced as well.
Comment:
- similar situations and big influences of the catholic church, and the Religious and syndical actions that affected highly on working Sundays.
Reply:
This issue has been addressed in the previous round of revision. It is discussed in line 72-91 and 119-120.
Comment:
- The key parts about the sampling procedure are missing;
The recruitment procedure is missing.
Informed consent is missing.
Reply:
This issue has been addressed in the previous round of revision. Line 211-227 give informaiton of the sampling and recruitment process. Line 227-230 give information on the informed consent.
Comment:
- Which festival happened in 2018 and which festival in 2025?
then the reader may get insight who were the participants and what kind of shoppers they can be a wine, food, religious festival ? now we do not know.
Reply:
This issue has already been addressed in the previous round of revision. We append the respective replies: "It has not been a single festival but distributed across multiple quarters with differing types of events. The text has been slightly rewritten to make this point clearer." and "We do not fully understand the comment. As stated the survey has been conducted with visitors to the festivities, i.e., during the festivities face-to-face interview were conducted with people on the street. A description of the two samples has been presented in the beginning of section 3, i.e., in Table 1."
Comment:
-The limitations of the study sample size, two different a very large and very small sample not justified – ten times larger in 2018 ?
Reply:
This issue has already been addressed in the previous round of revision. We append the respective reply: "While we generally agree that differently sized sample might provide a potential bias, since occurs usually only in small samples, i.e., n < 50. Since both sub-sample are above the critical sample size of 50 observations which the implemented t-test requires there are no larger biases to be expected from that side. In the regression analysis which replicates the t-test in a more general way, the observations are pooled and 1150 observations in total are well suitable for the regression analysis. Even with 150 participants and the probable population size for the study the sampling error lies below 10% which in many studies is considered a reasonable threshold." To make it clear for the reader the information about the sampling errors has been added to the text in lines 256-257.
