The cost of shopping: measuring virtual and physical access for obtaining goods

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/1970-9870/10688
Keywords: accessibility, online vs. in-store shopping, physical vs. virtual, dual access, Wuhan city, COVID-19

Abstract

The rise of e-commerce, bolstered by advancements in information and communication technology (ICT), has made it possible for consumers to shop online without the need to physically travel. The unexpected emergence of COVID-19 further accelerated this shift towards online shopping. This paper delves into the nuances of virtual versus physical access to goods, drawing from the dual access theory. It aims to offer a comprehensive understanding of the disparities in accessibility between digital and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences. Our results indicate that when considering the complete private costs—including the intrinsic costs of shopping and those incurred en route like travel and delivery fees—online shopping typically offers greater accessibility and is more cost-effective than its in-store counterpart. Interestingly, while physical access to shopping displays a pattern where the central city has a distinct advantage over the suburbs, virtual access presents a more uniform distribution throughout the city.

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Author Biographies

Jing Chen, School of Engineering Audit, Nanjing Audit University

She is a lecturer in the School of Engineering Audit, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing, China. She earned her PhD degree in Transportation Engineering from the School of Transportation, Southeast University in 2022. Currently, her research concerns the topic of urban mobility, accessibility, optimization of multimodal transportation network.

 

Mengying Cui, College of Transportation Engineering, Chang’an University, Xi’an, China

She joined Chang’an University, China, in 2020 as an Associate Professor at the College of Transportation Engineering. Prior to this appointment, she worked as a postdoctoral research associate at TransportLab at the University of Sydney for more than two years. She earned her PhD degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 2018. Her dissertation, “Full Cost Accessibility”, provides a theoretical basis combines temporal, monetary, and non-monetary travel costs into accessibility evaluations, which fill the gap of the traditional time-based accessibility measures that ignore other cost factors, especially the external cost, of travel. Her main interests of research include accessibility, transport networks, and transportation economics and she has co-authored several papers in top peer reviewed journals in transport and land use, including Transportation, Transportation Research Part D, Cities and so on. She currently serves as an editorial advisory board member for the Journal of Transport and Land Use.

David Levinson, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

He joined the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney in 2017 as Foundation Professor in Transport Engineering. He was a Professor at the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota, from 1999 to 2016. He conducts research on Accessibility, Transport Economics, Transport Network Evolution, and Transport and Land Use Interaction. He is the Founding Editor of Findings and the Journal of Transport and Land Use. He is the author of several books including: The Transportation Experience, Planning for Place and Plexus, A Political Economy of Access, Elements of Access, and The End of Traffic and the Future of Access. He blogs at https://www.transportist.net.

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Published
2024-04-30
How to Cite
ChenJ., CuiM., & LevinsonD. (2024). The cost of shopping: measuring virtual and physical access for obtaining goods. TeMA - Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 17(1), 129-145. https://doi.org/10.6093/1970-9870/10688
Issue
Vol 17 No 1 (2024): NEW CHALLENGES FOR XXI CENTURY CITIES Global warming, ageing of population, reduction of energy consumption, immigration flows, optimization of land use, technological innovation
Section
LUME (Land Use, Mobility and Environment)

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