Explore the relationship between online shopping and shopping trips: An analysis with the 2009 NHTS data

The rapid growth of ecommerce brings great changes to the transportation system. However, most existing studies focus on the impact of ecommerce on freight system. Its impact on personal trips is relatively less studied. It is reasonable to argue that online shopping reduces the need of shopping trips by making goods accessible via door-to-door deliveries. On the other hand, online shopping may also create more shopping trips as online shoppers travel to stores to experience, compare or pick up the goods. Understanding the connections between online shopping and shopping trips is critical for transportation planners to prepare for changes that information technology will continue to bring to this nation in the future. Using the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data and a structural equation model (SEM), this paper disentangles the bidirectional connections between online shopping and shopping trips. Results show that online shopping encourages shopping trips while shopping trips tend to suppress the online shopping propensity. Besides, both online shopping and shopping trips are influenced by exogenous factors such as shoppers' demographic features, regional specific factors and household attributes. A closer examination at the state level further confirms model validity while disclosing spatial variation in their relationship.