E‐shopping Versus City Centre Shopping: The Role of Perceived City Centre Attractiveness

The growing number of Internet users and the increasing volume of online sales gives rise to speculation about how e‐shopping will affect shopping centres as we know them. Since shopping centres differ in terms of their appeal to consumers, we expect the impact of e‐shopping on in‐store shopping to decrease with increasing attractiveness of the latter. To test this proposition, we examined how perceived attractiveness of city centres influences the relation between city centre shopping and e‐shopping for 3,200 Internet users in the Netherlands. Results showed that more than 20 per cent of the online buyers made fewer trips to the city centre and also made fewer purchases at city centre stores, due to e‐shopping. However, the higher the perceived attractiveness of the city centre, both in terms of range and convenience of shopping and accessibility, the less Internet users are inclined to shop online and to replace city centre shopping with e‐shopping.