Identifying the Geography and Determinants of O2O Online Retailers in Megacity in Central China: A Case Study of Zhengzhou City

Abstract

In recent years, O2O e-commerce, represented by online group-buying, has developed vigorously, which had significant impacts on urban commercial space. Zhengzhou City is a rising national central city in China, and its e-commerce development level is ahead, but relevant researches are rare. Therefore, the data of online retailers of Meituan.com was collected and combined with Baidu map and Baidu heat map data. Then, we adopted the methods such as spatial statistics and geodetector to explore the geography and determinants of O2O online retailers in Zhengzhou urban area. The main conclusions are 1) The spatial development of O2O online retailers is characterized by significant global high-value agglomeration. 2) The agglomeration areas of different types of O2O online retailers are different. Most of them are concentrated in the old urban area within the Third Ring Road of Zhengzhou City, forming five comprehensive agglomeration areas. 3) The areas with the high e-commerce development level are mainly concentrated in the northeast and southwest of the x-shaped region formed by the intersection of Lianyungang-Lanzhou and Beijing-Guangzhou railways. Erqi Square and Guomao 360 Plaza are at the highest development level, followed by Zhongyuan Wanda Plaza and Daxue Middle Road. The development level at other areas is relatively low. 4) Zhengzhou’s O2O commercial pattern is highly dependent on physical business. The population distribution, especially the population distribution during the nightlife period, plays a vital role in its spatial development, followed by accessibility. The influences of physical distance are slightly larger than that of time cost, but the difference between them is little. In addition, travelling costs have the least impact. This paper could provide certain references for urban commercial planning.