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.

翻译：本研究利用近期发布的亚马逊购买历史数据集（该数据集通过数千名美国消费者众包收集），系统分析了在线购买行为随时间的变化趋势、不同人口统计群体间的行为差异、COVID-19大流行的影响以及线上线下零售的关联。本工作通过消费者层级购买数据的案例研究，揭示了超越聚合指标的购买行为与趋势。例如，除分析消费行为外，我们开发了量化消费者在线购买频率和购买产品多样性的新指标，以更准确地反映在线零售日益增长的普及度和主导地位。2018年至2022年间，这些消费者层级指标平均增长超过85%，并于2021年达到峰值。研究发现：在COVID-19爆发前，个体在线购买已呈现稳定上升趋势；疫情首年出现显著增长，但未产生持久影响；2022年的购买行为未超过疫情前趋势的预期水平。研究还发现不同人口统计群体的购买行为变化存在显著差异，且对疫情的反应各不相同。我们进一步利用消费者层级数据，揭示了亚马逊重点投资领域（图书、鞋类和杂货）中线上线下零售的替代效应：疫情前，图书和鞋类在线购买者数量的逐年变化与当地书店、鞋店就业人数变化呈负相关；疫情期间，在线杂货购买与实体店杂货访问量呈负相关。本研究表明，众包开放的购买数据能够提供通常仅私营企业可获得的经济洞察。