利用众包的美国消费者购买数据评估亚马逊效应及COVID-19的有限影响
Evaluating Amazon Effects and the Limited Impact of COVID-19 With Purchases Crowdsourced from US Consumers
AI总结：
本研究利用美国消费者众包的Amazon购买数据，分析线上购买行为趋势、人口群体差异、COVID-19的有限影响及线上线下零售替代效应，证明众包购买数据可提供原本仅私营企业能获取的经济洞见。
摘要：
我们利用近期发布的、由数千名美国消费者众包而来的Amazon购买历史数据集，研究线上购买行为随时间的变化模式、不同人口群体的变化差异、COVID-19大流行的影响，以及线上与线下零售之间的关联。本研究提供了一个案例，展示消费者层面的购买数据如何揭示总体指标无法呈现的购买行为与趋势。例如，除了分析支出行为，我们还构建了新的指标来量化消费者线上购买频率和所购产品多样性的变化，以更好地反映线上零售日益普及且占据主导地位的现状。2018年至2022年间，这些消费者层面的指标平均增长超过85%，在2021年达到峰值。我们发现，COVID-19暴发前个人线上购买量呈稳步上升趋势，疫情第一年出现显著增长，但并未产生持久影响；2022年的购买行为并未超出疫情前趋势所对应的水平。我们还发现，不同人口群体的购买行为变化存在显著差异，对疫情的反应也各不相同。我们进一步利用消费者层面的数据，揭示了Amazon大举投资的品类（图书、鞋类、杂货）中线上与线下零售的替代效应：疫情前，图书和鞋类线上购买消费者数量的年度变化，与当地书店和鞋店的就业变化呈负相关；疫情期间，线上杂货购买与线下杂货店到店访问量呈负相关。本研究表明，众包的公开购买数据能够催生原本仅私营企业才能获得的经济学洞见。
英文摘要：
We leverage a recently published dataset of Amazon purchase histories, crowdsourced from thousands of US consumers, to study how online purchasing behaviors have changed over time, how changes vary across demographic groups, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and relationships between online and offline retail. This work provides a case study in how consumer-level purchases data can reveal purchasing behaviors and trends beyond those available from aggregate metrics. For example, in addition to analyzing spending behavior, we develop new metrics to quantify changes in consumers' online purchase frequency and the diversity of products purchased, to better reflect the growing ubiquity and dominance of online retail. Between 2018 and 2022 these consumer-level metrics grew on average by more than 85%, peaking in 2021. We find a steady upward trend in individuals' online purchasing prior to COVID-19, with a significant increase in the first year of COVID, but without a lasting effect. Purchasing behaviors in 2022 were no greater than the result of the pre-pandemic trend. We also find changes in purchasing significantly differ by demographics, with different responses to the pandemic. We further use the consumer-level data to show substitution effects between online and offline retail in sectors where Amazon heavily invested: books, shoes, and grocery. Prior to COVID we find year-to-year changes in the number of consumers making online purchases for books and shoes negatively correlated with changes in employment at local bookstores and shoe stores. During COVID we find online grocery purchasing negatively correlated with in-store grocery visits. This work demonstrates how crowdsourced, open purchases data can enable economic insights that may otherwise only be available to private firms.
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