Time spent shopping per day | The End of Traffic and the Future of Transport

| David Levinson
The rise of online retailing allows people to substitute delivery for fetching, and reduce the amount of shopping trips. Sears and Montgomery Wards were famous for their massive catalogs, particularly come Christmas time. Catalogs were replaced by the Internet, seemingly a case of the old being dismissed by the new: Sears by Amazon. Notably, Sears phased out its Big Book in 1993 and started shrinking its Wish Book that same year. Amazon was founded in 1994. Not only can shoppers do the same thing differently (and better), they can do many more things enabled by the technology of the web. Amazon, which now claims 1% of total retail sales in the United States, has become the single one-stop shop for everything. Given that Amazon is now over twenty years old, its hardly considered new anymore. However, its influence on how people "go" shopping is now unparalleled. Shopping trips are down by about one-third in a decade, they now comprise fewer than 9% of all trips, down from 12.5% in 2000. Time spent shopping per day is also down From Levinson and Krizek (2015) The End of Traffic and the Future of Transport. http://davidlevinson.org/the-end-of-traffic-and-the-future-of-transport/ Figure 3.5 Source: Twin Cities Travel Behavior Inventory, Metropolitan Council. Analysis by authors.
The rise of online retailing allows people to substitute delivery for fetching, and reduce the amount of shopping trips. Sears and Montgomery Wards were famous for their massive catalogs, particularly come Christmas time. Catalogs were replaced by the Internet, seemingly a case of the old being dismissed by the new: Sears by Amazon. Notably, Sears phased out its Big Book in 1993 and started shrinking its Wish Book that same year. Amazon was founded in 1994.
Not only can shoppers do the same thing differently (and better), they can do many more things enabled by the technology of the web. Amazon, which now claims 1% of total retail sales in the United States, has become the single one-stop shop for everything. Given that Amazon is now over twenty years old, its hardly considered new anymore. However, its influence on how people “go” shopping is now unparalleled.
Shopping trips are down by about one-third in a decade, they now comprise fewer than 9% of all trips, down from 12.5% in 2000. Time spent shopping per day is also down
From Levinson and Krizek (2015) The End of Traffic and the Future of Transport. 
Figure 3.5 Source: Twin Cities Travel Behavior Inventory, Metropolitan Council. Analysis by authors.