At the conference «Digital Industry of Industrial Russia – 2018» in Innopolis (Tatarstan), the results of a joint study were presented HSE Higher School of Urban Studies and «Yandex.Taxi», according to which more than half of Internet users in small cities of the Russian Federation have never made purchases on the Internet, mainly due to the lack of such a habit and preference to do them personally.

«Never bought goods or services over the Internet in small towns 60%, and in millionaires 40% of citizens,   noted in the study.The most likely reason is the lack of habit among residents of small and medium-sized cities for such actions. The most common explanation for the reluctance to shop online turned out to be a preference for personal purchases (28% of respondents insmall towns answered exactly like this)».

At the same time, 31% of residents of small towns are looking for goods via the Internet, whereas in cities with millions of people this figure is 52%.

At the same time, the authors of the study note that in small towns there is a low penetration of digital services tied to the territory (services for ordering and delivering food, online shopping in local stores, ticket purchases for local events, online taxi ordering, etc.). According to the study, 21% of the urban population of the Russian Federation are practically or completely not provided with services that involve receiving services at the location of the client. 60% of urban residents of the Russian Federation are well provided with such services.

The most common local services are online taxi aggregators and information services (for example, local online posters). According to the research, their appearance in the city helps to create a basic digital infrastructure.: up-to-date online maps, information about local organizations and services. In the future, this contributes to the penetration of other local digital services into the city.

For reference: There are 1112 cities in Russia, the population of 1016 (91%) of them does not exceed 200 thousand people in number. In cities with less than 200 thousand 36 million people live there, which is a third of the total urban population of the country. Internet penetration in Russia is about 80%.

Source: crn.ru

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