Purpose -To empirically study the uptake of collection-and-delivery points (CDPs) in The Netherlands and its consequences for retailers, shopping centres, and mobility. Design/methodology/approach -The study uses 2006 data from an online consumer survey and data provided by the major CDP companies in The Netherlands. In addition, two Dutch directors of CDP companies were interviewed.
Why consumers shop via the Internet, is a frequently asked question. As yet, the impact of spatial variables on e-shopping has received little attention. In this paper we report our investigation of the spatial distribution of Internet users and online buyers in the Netherlands for the time period 1996–2001 and the impact of spatial variables (residential environment and shop accessibility) on e-shopping. Two hypotheses are tested empirically. The first is that e-shopping is a predominantly urban phenomenon, because new technology usually starts in centres of innovation (innovation-diffusion hypothesis). The second is that people are more likely to adopt e-shopping when their accessibility to shops is relatively low (efficiency hypothesis). Our findings indicate that Internet use and online buying are still largely urban phenomena in the Netherlands, but that there is a trend towards diffusion to the weakly urbanised and rural areas. Not only the innovation diffusion hypothesis, but also the efficiency hypothesis is confirmed by our findings. People living in a (very) strongly urbanised area have a higher likelihood of buying online, but people with a low shop accessibility buy more often online. The analysis also shows that the support for the two hypotheses depends on the type of product. Airline tickets are still mainly bought in very strongly urbanised areas, whereas compact discs, videos, DVDs, and clothing are bought relatively more often in weakly urbanised areas. In conclusion, geography seems to matter for e-shopping.
The growing number of Internet users and the increasing volume of online sales gives rise to speculation about how e-shopping will affect shopping centres as we know them. Since shopping centres differ in terms of their appeal to consumers, we expect the impact of e-shopping on in-store shopping to decrease with increasing attractiveness of the latter. To test this proposition, we examined how perceived attractiveness of city centres influences the relation between city centre shopping and e-shopping for 3,200 Internet users in the Netherlands. Results showed that more than 20 per cent of the online buyers made fewer trips to the city centre and also made fewer purchases at city centre stores, due to e-shopping. However, the higher the perceived attractiveness of the city centre, both in terms of range and convenience of shopping and accessibility, the less Internet users are inclined to shop online and to replace city centre shopping with e-shopping. Copyright (c) 2007 by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG.
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