(Radio Iowa) – A study by Iowa State University researchers found an urban-rural divide in the U-S when it comes to buying items and having them delivered. Study co-author Micah Marzolf says they looked at of more than a decade of shopping data. “The shift to online shopping hasn’t been equal across the country. Urban consumers rely much more on delivery, and that gap was actually reinforced and kind of grew during COVID, and it stuck around afterwards, at least through the end of our study in 2023,” Marzolf says.
She says their theory is online ordering and delivery is faster and easier in urban areas. “So we think it’s really in very dense urban areas, delivery is much more convenient. So a lot of urban consumers in, again, these dense urban areas don’t have access to a personal vehicle, for example, or they’re dealing with congestion and traffic to get to stores,” she says.
Marzolf says rural consumers are also used to making a trip to the store without as many in their area, and it’s something they are used to doing. “It could be more about some of it being about the experience and just the convenience of, okay, I can make one trip and get everything that I need versus waiting on several different packages to show up at different times,” Marzolf says.
Marzolf is an I-S-U assistant professor of supply chain management, and says things haven’t seemed to change as online companies have pushed to speed up rural deliveries. “We’re looking more at the demand side, so even when you do have that infrastructure in place that can perhaps speed up deliveries in rural areas, rural consumers are still slower to adopt. So it really points to brick and mortar stores remaining essential for now in these more rural areas,” she says.
Marzolf says the study give the various retailers something to look at when they are trying to find the best way to focus resources. “So it means that geography still plays a big role in how people shop, and that has implications then for local stores and investments in delivery options,” Marzolf say. She says that will continue to impact where companies build warehouses, which markets receive premium delivery options and where traditional retail stores remain central to local economies.
