Is eShopping Taking Over In-Store Shopping? A Trend Analysis of Shopping Activity Using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) Data
Publication: International Conference on Transportation and Development 2023
ABSTRACT
Technological advancements in information, telecommunication, and supply chains have been bringing great changes to the fields of human travel behavior and transportation systems. This, in turn, affects transportation-related issues such as traffic congestion, energy use, and emissions. Shopping and errands trips represent a large percentage of human travel activity. Accordingly, changes in these trips could have significant impacts on our transportation systems. Various studies have investigated trip rates of online and in-store shopping. However, there appears to be a gap in the literature on studies that explore trends of activity times of online and in-store shopping. This paper presents the results of estimating trends of the amount of time a person spends each day engaging in online and in-store shopping activities. The developed trends are based on annual data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), from 2003 until 2019. Activity of online and in-store shopping activity was defined using three measures: (1) average online and in-store shopping time per person per day, (2) percentage of online and in-store shopping activities, and (3) average length of online and in-store shopping activities. Results of this work indicate clear and consistent evidence (across all three measures) of a slow but continuous increase in online-shopping and decline in in-store shopping activity.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Aguiléra, A., C. Guillot, and A. Rallet. 2012. “Mobile ICTs and physical mobility: Review and research agenda.” Transp. Res. Part Policy Pract., 46 (4): 664–672. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2012.01.005.
Arentze, T. A., H. Oppewal, and H. J. P. Timmermans. 2005. “A Multipurpose Shopping Trip Model to Assess Retail Agglomeration Effects.” J. Mark. Res., 42 (1): 109–115. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.42.1.109.56884.
Arentze, T. A., and H. J. P. Timmermans. 2001. “Deriving performance indicators from models of multipurpose shopping behavior.” J. Retail. Consum. Serv., 8 (6): 325–334. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0969-6989(00)00038-2.
Bacon, R. W. 1995. “Combined trips and the frequency of shopping.” J. Retail. Consum. Serv., 2 (3): 175–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/0969-6989(95)00034-8.
Bhat, C. 2001. “Modeling the Commute Activity-Travel Pattern of Workers: Formulation and Empirical Analysis.” Transp. Sci., 35 (1): 61–79. https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.35.1.61.10142.
Blaylock, J. R. 1989. “An economic model of grocery shopping frequency.” Appl. Econ., 21 (6): 843–852. https://doi.org/10.1080/758520277.
Braithwaite, P. A. n.d. The Implications of Internet Shopping Growth on the Van Fleet and Traffic Activity. 68.
Doti, J. L., and S. Sharir. 1981. “households’grocery shopping behavior in the short-run: Theory and evidence.” Econ. Inq., 19 (2): 196–208. Wiley Online Library.
Farag, S., T. Schwanen, M. Dijst, and J. Faber. 2007. “Shopping online and/or in-store? A structural equation model of the relationships between e-shopping and in-store shopping.” Transp. Res. Part Policy Pract., 41 (2): 125–141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2006.02.003.
Kim, B.-D., and K. Park. 1997. “Studying patterns of consumer’s grocery shopping trip.” J. Retail., 73 (4): 501–517. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-4359(97)90032-4.
Peng, C. 2019. Does e-commerce reduce traffic congestion? Evidence from alibaba single day shopping event. Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
Sun, Y., A. Tarigan, O. Waygood, and D. Wang. 2017. “Diversity in diversification: an analysis of shopping trips in six-week travel diary data.” J. Zhejiang Univ.-Sci. A, 18 (3): 234–244. https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.A1500198.
Yamada, T., and T. Hayashida. 2020. “Analysis of shopping behavior characteristics in the Keihanshin metropolitan area in Japan based on a person trip survey.” Geo-Spat. Inf. Sci., 23 (4): 305–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/10095020.2020.1845984.
Zhou, Y., and X. C. Wang. 2014. “Explore the relationship between online shopping and shopping trips: An analysis with the 2009 NHTS data.” Transp. Res. Part Policy Pract., 70: 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2014.09.014.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
International Conference on Transportation and Development 2023
Pages: 48 - 59
History
Published online: Jun 13, 2023
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Business management
- Communication systems
- Computer networks
- Computing in civil engineering
- Data analysis
- Engineering fundamentals
- Freight transportation
- Human and behavioral factors
- Infrastructure
- Internet
- Lifeline systems
- Logistics
- Methodology (by type)
- Practice and Profession
- Research methods (by type)
- Supply chain management
- Traffic congestion
- Traffic engineering
- Traffic management
- Transportation engineering
- Transportation management
- Transportation studies
- Travel patterns
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.