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

Michael Olumekor, Harman Preet Singh () and Ibrahim Abdullah Alhamad
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Michael Olumekor: Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, 620014 Yekaterinburg, Russia
Harman Preet Singh: Department of Management and Information Systems, College of Business Administration, University of Ha’il, P.O. Box 2440, Ha’il 81451, Saudi Arabia
Ibrahim Abdullah Alhamad: Department of Management and Information Systems, College of Business Administration, University of Ha’il, P.O. Box 2440, Ha’il 81451, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 4, 1-17

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.

Keywords: online grocery; online shopping; e-commerce; food shopping; income; price; internet; region; electronic commerce; sustainable development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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