Internet Purchases by Rural Residents
Norman Walzer and Justin Colavito
Project Abstract
Access to the Internet has become a major topic in rural economic development strategies because of its importance in helping even small communities compete for businesses and jobs. While the Internet, as a way to overcome distance, offers special advantages to rural areas, it also poses competition with main street businesses in small towns since they must now compete with large stores offering wide selections, often at lower prices.
This project examines Internet purchasing patterns of rural residents by age, income, and sex to determine the characteristics of Internet purchasers and the types of stores in rural areas likely to face the most competition. The multivariate Logit analysis of 840 rural residents in the 2000 Illinois Rural Life Panel indicates that access to the Internet at home rather than work, recent changes in financial status, size of community in which people reside, age, and past experience in purchasing from mail order catalogs are important determinants of Internet purchases.
The paper concludes with several implications for rural economic development including the notion that future Internet purchasers may be those that already were purchasing outside the community through catalogs. Local stores can develop web pages but probably will still be disadvantaged unless they can focus on services, unique merchandise, or join cooperatives that carry a large inventory at lower prices.
Deliverables from Project
A Rural Research Report "Internet Purchases by Rural Residents" on this project was published in 2002 (vol. 13, issue 2) and is available here.
A paper has been submitted to a refereed journal and is currently being considered for publication in a special issue to be published in Spring 2004.
