The fact that low-income Americans are somewhat less likely to purchase things online is not too much of a surprise, as those with lower incomes might be expected to be less active shoppers generally. In fact, low-income Americans – defined in this survey as those who reported household incomes of less than $25,000 annually – are less frequent shoppers than the more well-off. Some 56% of low-income Americans go shopping once a week or more often, while 63% of those whose annual household incomes are over $60,000 annually shop once a week or more often.

Low-income online Americans generally are less likely to use the internet for the range of online shopping activities about which we queried. Compared to upper-income internet users, they are half as likely on a typical day to do something relating to shopping on the internet.

It is important to keep in mind that online access varies by household income. Although low-income internet users are nearly as likely as high income ones to have ever done any of the online shopping activities listed, all low-income Americans are less likely to have done them. This is because their internet access rate is about half that of upper-income Americans.

Notwithstanding these patterns of access and use of the internet to shop, certain features of online shopping might make using the internet for shopping very attractive to low-income people. As sociologists who study the poor have noted, being poor often means spending more time to carry out tasks many of those with higher incomes take for granted.⁷ Dependence on public transportation means it takes longer to get from point to point. Low-wage jobs generally have less flexibility for dealing with medical or child care problems, which creates time pressures in dealing with work- versus personal time trade-offs. Low-income people might also be expected to benefit most from finding bargains online – something half the online population sees as a benefit of using the internet to shop.