Mall-Intercept Interviews The expense and difficulties of in-home interviews have forced many researchers to conduct surveys in a central location, frequently within regional shopping centers. A mall-intercept interview is a face-to-face personal interview that takes place in a shopping mall. Mall shoppers are stopped and asked to complete a survey. The survey may take place in a common area of the mall or in the researcher’s on-site offices.
Mall-intercept interviews share the advantages of in-home and in-office interviews, but the environment is not as familiar to the respondent. But mall-intercepts are less expensive and more convenient for the researcher. A researcher spends little time or effort in securing a person’s agreement to participate in the interview because both are already at a common location.
The disadvantages of mall-intercept interviews are similar to those of in-home or inoffice interviews except that interviewer travel time is reduced. Moreover, mall patrons are not likely to be representative of the target population, even if they are screened. Typically, mall intercept interviews must use some type of nonprobability sampling, which adversely affects the ability to generalize survey results.