Online Grocery Shopping: Exploring the Influence of Income, Internet Access, and Food Prices

Abstract

Online grocery shopping has grown rapidly in recent years. It has been promoted as a way to overcome the systemic inequalities in food access and increase sustainable food practices. A growing body of studies has highlighted the impact of income, food prices, and internet access/connection on shaping people’s behavior in buying groceries online. However, there is a dearth of prior studies that have examined the impact of these three factors at the macro/meso level. Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of these factors from a sample of 16 Russian regions with a combined population size of more than 44 million people. We used a fixed effects linear regression model to analyze panel data on median income, mobile internet connection, food price index, and online grocery sales. Our results show the significant impact of income and imply that while online grocery shopping holds huge promise for overcoming unequal access to food and achieving sustainability, entrenched challenges such as poverty and income inequality might be difficult to shake off.

Socio-Cultural Factors and Components of the Digital Economy in Ethnic Minority Regions

“…The precise reasons for the influence of socio-cultural factors on the digital economy remain inconclusive. However, there is some evidence that the disproportionate level of economic and infrastructural inequality faced by ethnic minorities-often influenced by a history of subjugation and a lower interest in and greater distrust of new technologies-may contribute to this [29,30]. We therefore hypothesise that regions with stronger adherence to socio-cultural practices might be slower in adopting/growing the digital economy.…”