{"id":2307,"date":"2012-02-19T11:49:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-19T16:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2012-02-19T11:49:49","modified_gmt":"2012-02-19T16:49:49","slug":"online-shopping-playing-an-important-role-in-americans-driving-less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/02\/19\/online-shopping-playing-an-important-role-in-americans-driving-less\/","title":{"rendered":"Online shopping playing an important role in Americans driving less?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* Medium Rectangle *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8584504377\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been following the trend of Americans driving less. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/01\/23\/one-of-the-biggest-stories-not-being-widely-reported-americans-driving-less\/\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> for a post from just a month ago. Normally, if there is a decline in driving in a recession, there&#8217;s a fairly quick rebound once the economy starts to recover.<\/p>\n<p>Not this time. <\/p>\n<p>Inflation-adjusted gas prices are near their historical highs, but it seems there are other factors at work. <\/p>\n<p>From the Washington Post&#8217;s Wonkblog&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/ezra-klein\/post\/driving-gas-prices-and-the-end-of-retail\/2012\/02\/18\/gIQAkAXxLR_blog.html\" target=\"_blank\">Driving, gas prices and the end of retail<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Theories for a structural shift generally involve demographics: America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s swelling ranks of retirees don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t drive as much, while kids these days prefer Facebook to motoring around with friends. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another possible factor: <strong>the torrid growth of online shopping.<\/strong> Phil Izzo has the numbers, which are striking. In the fourth quarter of 2011, e-commerce surged to 5.5 percent of all retail sales \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and, if anything, that understates the trend, since brick-and-mortar stores include online sales in their own figures. When people order from their computers, of course, they save themselves a trip to the store. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The increase in online commerce seemed inevitable, at some point, but it&#8217;s possible that higher gas prices are helping to drive more online shopping.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the most recent graph from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calculatedriskblog.com\/2012\/01\/dot-vehicle-miles-driven-declined-09-in.html\" target=\"_blank\">Calculated Risk<\/a>:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/01\/23\/one-of-the-biggest-stories-not-being-widely-reported-americans-driving-less\/miles12monthnov2011\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2046\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"2046\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/01\/23\/one-of-the-biggest-stories-not-being-widely-reported-americans-driving-less\/miles12monthnov2011\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Miles12MonthNov2011-e1327368495549.jpg?fit=670%2C449\" data-orig-size=\"670,449\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Miles12MonthNov2011\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Miles12MonthNov2011-e1327368495549.jpg?fit=300%2C201\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Miles12MonthNov2011-e1327368495549.jpg?fit=594%2C399\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Miles12MonthNov2011-e1327368495549.jpg?resize=594%2C398\" alt=\"\" title=\"Miles12MonthNov2011\" width=\"594\" height=\"398\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2046\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been following the trend of Americans driving less. Click here for a post from just a month ago. Normally, if there is a decline in driving in a recession, there&#8217;s a fairly quick rebound once the economy starts to&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/02\/19\/online-shopping-playing-an-important-role-in-americans-driving-less\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[41],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-Bd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}