The geography of online shopping in China and its key drivers

Abstract

Many studies shed light on online shopping adoption and its determinants, most of which were conducted in developed countries and focused on sociodemographic factors. However, the influence of spatial attributes remains unclear or underestimated, especially in emerging economies. China is the largest e-commerce market in terms of the number of e-shoppers and the volume of online retail sales, with a distinctive geographical pattern of e-shopping usage. This study developed a conceptual model of China’s e-shopping adoption, examined the spatial characteristics of the e-shopping usage across 1918 counties, and explored its key drivers. The findings indicate a digital divide of e-shopping in China, with counties in metropolitan areas having a relatively high online shopping index (SI) value. The counties’ online shopping levels in China decrease from the eastern coastal regions to the rural-mountainous regions in west China. This study also found that the key drivers of e-shopping adoption are the rate of urbanization, local delivery systems, and the internet connection, which indicates that geographical attributes, rather than socioeconomic problems, have to be solved for improving online shopping adoption.