Understanding e-shopping
Analysis of ICT relation with shopping and shopping mobility behavior
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Abstract
E-shopping might affect in-store shopping in different ways, substituting physical purchases, which is called substitution effect, or on the contrary encouraging more of them, which is referred to as complementarity. Previous studies suggest that the latter is the dominant effect, but that both coexist within the population. Disentangling the shopping behaviour and mobility within the population is the first step to study if this is the case. This research, based on data from the Netherlands Mobility Panel (MPN), performs a latent class analysis in order to identify different profiles of e-shopping/in-store shopping behaviour. The research identifies seven profiles of e-shoppers: typical shoppers, reluctant e-shoppers, occasional shoppers, reluctant in-store shoppers, store regulars, active shoppers and remote shoppers. 47% of the population presents an above average e-shopping frequency and for 30%, e-shopping seems to be the main shopping activity. Nevertheless, with regard to shopping mobility, the differences between the clusters are rather small and not significant for the most part. Therefore, e-shopping does not seem to have a significant reduction effect on shopper mobility, which was one of the considerations of policy makers when e-shopping began to develop.