Spatial Reconstruction Of Urban Physical Commerce Of China In Information Era

Since 21 th century,e-commerce market has been booming with the widespread usage of Information & Communication Technologies.Currently,it has been acknowledged that e-commerce has a profound effect on the urban physical commerce.Additionally,e-commerce follows a unique spatial pattern which is different from conventional commerce.It is obvious that the spatial distribution of urban physical commerce is being reconstructed.In recent years,as a new phenomenon of commercial geography,e-commerce has attracted more and more attention from geographers.To sum up,scientists focus on three issues,the development effect of e-commerce on urban physical commerce,the spatial distribution of e-commerce,and the spatial effect of e-commerce on urban physical commerce.However,previous studies have paid more attention on the first two issues,and always ignored the last one.Especially in China,geographers always pay much attention on the spatial distribution of e-commerce.Therefore,by taking two typical types of e-commerce(remote-deal e-commerce and local-deal e-commerce)as research objects,this study tries to explore the characteristics of spatial reconstruction of urban physical commerce in China.It is significant to understand the spatial pattern of urban physical commerce in information era through this study.This research can also provide strategies for urban commercial planning and development.Firstly,we attempt to construct the theoretical model of spatial reconstruction of China's urban physical commerce in information era.Theoretically,as a kind of disruptive innovation,remote-deal e-commerce has an inhibition effect on the development of urban non-experiential physical commerce,which includes clothing,makeup,electronics,packed food,and so on.As a kind of sustaining innovation,local-deal e-commerce has a promotion effect on the development of urban experiential physical commerce,which includes catering,hotel,entertainment,and so on.In addition,remote-deal e-commerce theoretically has more inhibition effect onurban non-experiential physical commerce in the eastern Chinese cities.In a long run,the development gap of urban non-experiential physical commerce between western and eastern Chinese cities will be filled to some extent.The spatial pattern of non-experiential physical commerce is not influenced by remote-deal e-commerce significantly in urban internal areas.Local-deal e-commerce has more promotion effect on urban experiential physical commerce in the western Chinese cities.In a long run,the development gap of urban experiential physical commerce between western and eastern Chinese cities will be filled to some extent.For a certain city,new agglomerations of urban experiential physical commerce are more likely to emerge in urban outskirt areas and the areas with higher accessibility level based on time-cost.Secondly,by taking C2C(Consumer to Consumer)and O2O(Online to Offline)e-commerce as research objects,this paper performs an empirical analysis to respectively investigate the effect of remote-deal e-commerce and local-deal e-commerce on the development of Chengdu's physical commerce.The result indicates that,the e-shopping behavior of urban residents through C2 C e-commerce has an inhibition effect on the development of urban non-experiential physical commerce.On the contrary,the e-shopping behavior of urban residents through O2 O e-commerce has a promotion effect on the development of urban experiential physical commerce.This result confirms the theoretical model of the effect of e-commerce on the development of urban physical commerce.Thirdly,by taking C2 C and O2 O e-commerce as research objects,this paper performs an empirical analysis to respectively investigate the spatial responses of urban physical commerce to remote-deal e-commerce and local-deal e-commerce through macro view.The result indicates that,the spatial distribution of urban residents' C2 C e-shopping likelihood follows a hierarchy of decreasing from the east coast areas to the inland areas in China.Hence,C2 C e-commerce has more inhibition effect on urban non-experiential physical commerce in the eastern Chinese cities,which means that,in a long run,the development gap of urban non-experiential physical commerce between western and eastern Chinese cities will be filled to some extent.This result confirms the theoretical model of the spatial response of urban physical commerce to remote-deal e-commerce.In addition,the spatial distribution of development index of O2 O e-commerce follows an “inverse hierarchy” of increasing from the east coast areas to the inland areas in China.Hence,O2 O e-commerce has more promotion effect on urban experiential physical commerce in the westernChinese cities,which means that,in a long run,the development gap of urban experiential physical commerce between western and eastern Chinese cities will be filled to some extent.This result also confirms the theoretical model of the spatial response of urban physical commerce to local-deal e-commerce.Finally,by taking O2 O e-commerce as the research object,this paper also performs an empirical analysis to investigate the spatial responses of Chengdu's experiential physical commerce to e-commerce through micro view.The result indicates that,in the areas with higher accessibility level,the physical stores are more likely to adopt O2 O e-commerce strategy.Hence,new experiential physical commercial agglomerations are more likely to emerge in these areas.This result confirms the theoretical model of the spatial response of urban internal physical commerce to local-deal e-commerce.