Usage patterns for start-up agricultural and non-agricultural websites, as well as product and service oriented websites, were studied to determine differences in the number of unique visitors, usage based on the day and time of the week, total time spent on the website, and how the visitor found the website.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Kennedy, Gary A.

Nwoha, Ogbonnaya John

Rea, Kenneth

Watson, Susan

English

Research Papers in Economics

Website Usage Information for Rural-based  
E-Commerce Start-ups 
 
Susan E. Watson 
Dept. of Agricultural Sciences 
Louisiana Tech University 
Ruston, LA 71272 
318-257-3275 
swatson@latech.edu 
 
Gary A. Kennedy 
Dept. of Agricultural Sciences 
Louisiana Tech University 
Ruston, LA 71272 
318-257-3275 
gkennedy@latech.edu 
 
O. John Nwoha 
Program Associate 
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness 
Agricultural Building, Room 217 
University of Arkansas 
Fayetteville, AR 72701 
479-575-2073 
jnwoha@uark.edu 
 
Kenneth Rea 
Center for Rural Development 
PO Box 3188 
LA Tech University 
Ruston, LA 71272 
318-257-2919 
rea@latech.edu 
 
 
 
Selected Paper prepared for presentation at the American Agricultural Economics 
Association Annual Meeting, Long Beach, California, July 23-26, 2006. 
 
 
Copyright by Susan Watson, Gary Kennedy, John Nwoha, and Kenneth Rea.  All rights 
reserved.  Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial 
purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. 
   1
Website Usage Information for Rural-based 
E-Commerce Start-ups* 
 
*The authors would like to thank the USDA Fund for Rural America for supporting the  
Delta E-Commerce Connection and this project.  
 
ABSTRACT:  
 
Usage patterns for start-up agricultural and non-agricultural websites, as well as product 
and service oriented websites, were studied to determine differences in the number of 
unique visitors, usage based on the day and time of the week, total time spent on the 
website, and how the visitor found the website.      2
Website Usage Information for Rural-based  
E-Commerce Start-ups 
 
E-commerce is defined as the “value of goods and services sold online… 
including the use of the internet, intranet, extranet, as well as proprietary networks that 
run systems such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)” (U.S. Census Bureau 2005).  
Buying and selling online furthers globalization and the ability to perform transactions 
from almost anywhere in the world.  This increased flexibility can help traditionally 
underserved areas improve and develop economically.  According to the U.S. Rural 
Policy Research Institute (2005), 82% of the persistently poor counties are in the rural 
South.  The South has historically been known for lower income and higher 
unemployment rates as compared to non-rural areas (Rural Policy Research Institute 
2005).  Therefore, the potential of e-commerce to overcome these geographic handicaps 
offers a source of hope for those desiring to remain in their locations and not contribute to 
further rural outmigration.   
E-commerce offers benefits to consumers.  Online shoppers enjoy better 
selections, the avoidance of crowds, the comfort of shopping from their own home 
(Schimmel and Nicholls 2003), avoidance of impulse buying, and the ability to find 
bargains in less time (Roberts, Xu, and Mettos 2003).  E-commerce offers businesses the 
ability to be open all the time with virtually unlimited market access.  For a seller, once 
the website is built, there is little additional cost to reach another customer as in 
traditional marketing where marginal costs accrue for each promotional item sent, for 
example, catalogs (Lal and Sarvary 1999).  Sellers also enjoy the ability to appear larger 
online through a professionally designed website than they may be in reality.     3
Consumers do have barriers to purchasing online.  Consumers are not able to 
touch, taste, feel, or try on products and they miss out on the social aspects of shopping 
(Roberts, Xu, and Mettos 2003).  Additionally, there is still much consumer concern 
about internet security and providing credit card information (Schimmel and Nicholls 
2003).   
E-commerce adoption is largely influenced by four factors: organizational 
readiness, external pressure, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness (Grandon 
and Pearson 2004).  Sambrook (2003) states that businesses must overcome barriers such 
as lack of time, financial resources, expertise, and employer attitudes.  Pease and Rowe 
(2003) cite the main reasons for lack of e-commerce adoption internally as: technology 
anxiety, concerns with security, cost of implementation, the high failure rate of new e-
commerce businesses, lack of awareness of e-commerce, and shortage of time and skills 
to learn new processes.  Pease and Rowe (2003) also cite external reasons for the 
reluctance to adoption including: lack of help with the start-up, insufficient bandwidth 
capacity, absence of enabling infrastructure, and electronic authentication issues.  Rural 
businesses face additional challenges as they must be able to find affordable high-speed 
internet services in remote locations (Grimes 2003). 
There are numerous studies outlining what businesses need to do to be successful 
online.  Consumers identified features of websites that they found most critical.  These 
included: privacy, ability to check stock availability, detailed product descriptions, 
customer service, website interactivity, and website attractiveness (Abate and Moser 
2003; Auger 2005; Post et al. 2002).  These factors are critical as online shoppers are 
getting more sophisticated.  Cervini (2005) found that 20% of instore purchases were   4
influenced by the stores’ website.  Additionally, 86% of online sales were planned and 
researched where the consumer made multiple visits to the website before purchase 
(Cervini 2005).  Pease and Rowe (2003) contend that success in e-commerce is not due to 
understanding technology alone, but in integrating technology into management and 
marketing strategies to fully encompass e-commerce in business planning.   
  This study focuses on start-up rural business websites and how potential 
customers used the websites for the first year the business was online.  The rural 
businesses studied were established through the Delta E-Commerce Connection (DECC) 
project.  The DECC was a project funded by the USDA Fund for Rural Development 
with the goal of taking on rural businesses as clients for a one year period of time to help 
them gain a web presence.  Only agricultural based or businesses in rural areas were 
taken on as clients.   
  Potential clients were recruited through the help of the Small Business 
Development Centers in the Delta region.  These businesses attended a DECC seminar 
that provided information on the potential of e-commerce, costs of hardware, software, 
and services, advantages and disadvantages to an online presence, marketing strategies, 
and specific features to include on a business website.  After the seminar, interested 
clients applied to the program for technical support.  The applications were evaluated to 
determine that the businesses met the eligibility criteria and that the business could 
benefit from establishing an e-commerce presence.  Once clients were chosen they 
entered a one-year period of technical help to get their businesses online.  Technical help 
offered through the project included the design of a professional e-commerce website, 
domain name registration, and web hosting for one year.  Businesses could be as active as   5
they desired in learning about website design and maintenance procedures.  Clients were 
provided software, access to a website designer, and space on a secure server for one year 
at no cost to the business.  This allowed the rural businesses the opportunity to try out e-
commerce for a twelve month trial period with no cost other than time.  After the one 
year period, the business had to take over financial responsibility or discontinue their 
website.   
 
Materials and Methods 
  Businesses supported through the DECC project were under contract to allow 
DECC managers access to their website usage statistics.  During the course of the one-
year of technical support, the DECC tracked website usage statistics for the rural business 
websites.  The raw server log that records every visit to a website is first summarized 
using the AWStat
1 software installed on the BellSouth web host application servers.  The 
summarized data were then analyzed with SPSS version 12.0 (SPSS Inc. 2005). A one-
way ANOVA with a Scheffe post-hoc test was used to determine if there were 
differences in usage pattern between agricultural and non-agricultural websites and 
between product and service oriented websites.  Post-hoc test are typically used when 
ANOVA tests are statistically significant and there are more than two groups. The 
Scheffe procedure was chosen because it allows one to look beyond whether something is 
simply statistically significant, but where specifically these differences arise.  For 
example, if there are three groups; two, or three means could be different.  The Scheffe 
                                                 
1 “AWStats is a free powerful and featureful tool that generates advanced web, streaming, ftp or mail server statistics, 
graphically. This log analyzer works as a CGI or from command line and shows you all possible information your log 
contains, in few graphical web pages. It uses a partial information file to be able to process large log files, often and 
quickly. It can analyze log files from all major server tools like Apache log files (NCSA combined/XLF/ELF log format or 
common/CLF log format), WebStar, IIS (W3C log format) and a lot of other web, proxy, wap, streaming servers, mail 
servers and some ftp servers.” (Available online at http://awstats.sourceforge.net/.  Accessed January 20, 2006.)   6
procedure is one of the most flexible, conservative, and robust post-hoc tests as compared 
to alternative testing (Homack 2001).  The conservative nature comes from an increase in 
the critical value (Hinkle et al. 1998). 
  The data was used to determine if there were statistical differences in usage 
patterns among agricultural and non-agricultural websites, as well as product and service 
oriented websites with respect to the number of unique visitors, usage based on the day of 
the week, usage based on the time of day, total time spent on the website, and how the 
visitor found the start-up rural business website.   Additionally, summary and frequency 
data was collected to develop a complete picture of the profile of the users of these start-
up rural business websites.  
 
Results 
  The start-up rural businesses had an average of 20 unique visitors the first year of 
operation with 367 hits on the average.  Most start-ups websites require time to be found 
in the search engines and require time to build a loyal customer base that will return to 
the websites.  Approximately 70% of visitors were on the website for 30 seconds or less, 
with 3% visiting for one hour or more.  This is important for businesses to understand 
because they have a short time to try and sell their products or services.  Consumers must 
be able to purchase a product without having to navigate through the entire website to 
figure out how to make a purchase.  The agricultural websites had fewer visitors on the 
average than non-agricultural websites.   
Overall, the rural based websites received more traffic early in the week (Monday 
and Tuesday) that the rest of the week, however, there were no statistical differences   7
between traffic based on the day of the week for product versus service oriented websites 
or agricultural versus non-agricultural websites (Table 1, Figure 1).  The websites were 
also analyzed by the time of the day that they were accessed.  There were statistically 
fewer hits (p<.001) between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. and between 1:00 p.m. (p<.001) 
than the average for the rest of the day.  There were also more users on service-oriented 
websites at 10:00 a.m. than product-oriented websites (p<.10) (Table 2, Figure 2).  The 
average length of visit was 177 seconds or just under three minutes, with most visits 
under 30 seconds (Figure 3). 
Visitors to the service-oriented websites were online longer than visitors to 
product-oriented websites, with average visits 420 and 81 seconds, respectively (p<.10).  
The service-oriented websites usually require more explanation because a visual picture 
will not work.  For instance, a consultant would need to explain what types of services 
they provide as well as provide examples of past work.  Visitors to agricultural websites 
found the websites more through internal pages than non-agricultural websites (p<.10).  
Overall, most users found the rural business websites through internal pages or addresses 
(Figure 4).  This is not surprising for new websites as it takes time to move up in the 
search engine rankings.  Most advertising for these rural businesses will be printing the 
web address on marketing paraphernalia such as business cards, banners, vehicle 
magnets, and product labels. 
 
Conclusions and Implications for Agricultural and Rural Based Businesses 
  Understanding how consumers navigate websites can help a business to format or 
reformat their existing website to better meet the customer’s needs.  For example, if you   8
know that most of your hits are coming early in the week you can promote a sale later in 
the week to generate more web traffic to your site during off peak demand days.  
Additionally, if most of your customers are locating your site by typing in the direct 
address, the business could decide how much they would be willing to invest to expand 
into search engine rankings or link exchanges with complementary websites.  Also, due 
to the short time span that consumers spend on a website, the ability to purchase without 
navigating through several pages first is imperative.  The percentage of repeat visitors can 
also indicate the degree of customer loyalty and if there should be more of a marketing 
effort to retain current customers.   
  As rural communities continue to expand into new marketplaces they will need to 
adopt new marketing approaches which begins by understanding the customer.  User 
profiles and characteristics of customers can assist rural businesses in managing the 
marketing aspects of their website.  These businesses can use the information to develop 
new strategies to increase sales.  The businesses in this study were largely successful in 
their first year online and will continue to grow and expand by continuing to understand 
just who their customers are and how they navigate through the complexities of 
cyberspace.     9
References 
 
Abate G. and C. Moser. 2003. “E-Commerce and Internet Use in Small Businesses:  
  Trends and Issues,” Working Paper, Dept. of Agricultural Economics, Michigan  
 State  University. 
Auger, P. 2005. “The Impact of Interactivity and Design Sophistication on the 
Performance of Commercial Websites for Small Businesses,” Journal of Small 
Business 43(2):119-137. 
Cervini, L. 2005. “Shoppers Flock to Internet, Driving Sales, Earnings, Share,” This 
Week in Consumer Electronics, 20(13):18. 
Grandon, E. and J.M. Pearson. 2004. “Electronic Commerce Adoption: An Empirical 
Study of Small and Medium US Businesses,” Information and Management, 
42(1):197-216. 
Grimes, S. 2003. “The Digital Economy Challenge Facing Peripheral Rural Areas,” 
Progress in Human Geography, 27(2):174-193. 
Homack, S. 2001. Understanding what ANOVA Post-hoc Tests Are, Really. Proceedings  
  of the Southwest Educational Research Association.  Available on-line:  
  http://www.edrs.com/Webstore/Download2.cfm?ID=474540&PleaseWait=OK.    
  September 15, 2005. 
Lal, R. and M. Sarvary. 1999. “When and How is the Internet Likely to Decrease Price 
Competition,” Marketing Science, 18(4):485-503.  
Pease, W. and M. Rowe. 2003. “E-Commerce and Small and Medium Enterprises 
(SMEs) in Regional Communities,” Proceedings of the Chartered Institute of 
Marketing Inaugural Conference, Sydney, Australia, August.   10
Post, G., A. Kagan, T. Burkink, and T. Schmitz. 2002. “Analyzing Consumers’ 
Preferences on Commercial Website Attributes,” Quarterly Journal of Electronic 
Commerce, 3(2):111-123. 
Rural Policy Research Institute. 2005. Available online: http://www.rprconline.org/.  
 Accessed  9-29-05. 
Roberts, M., M. Xianzhong, and N. Mettos. 2003. “Internet Shopping: The Supermarket  
  Model and Consumer Perceptions,” Journal of Electronic Commerce in  
 Organization, 1(2):32-43. 
Sambrook, S. 2003. “E-learning in Small Organizations,” Education and Training, 
45(8/9):506-516. 
Schimmel, K. and J. Nicholls. 2003. “Gender Differences and E-commerce Behavior and  
 Perceptions,”  Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 8(1):4. 
SPSS for Windows, Rel. 12.0 (2005) SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL. 
U.S. Census Bureau. 2005. Available online: http://www.census.gov/eos/www/faq.html.   
 Accessed  9-29-05. 
 
   11
Table 1. Website Hits by Day of the Week for Rural Businesses 
 
Website Unique Number 
Visitors  of Visits Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. Sun. Total
surfinginward.com 3 3 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 2
ihshomecare.com 68 104 429 318 197 236 254 171 145 1749
barefootcreations.biz 11 12 13 1 4 2 5 1 2 27
judiekramer.com 4 4 0 14 0 0 0 1 0 15
ducknaked.biz 64 75 56 142 28 37 25 43 27 357
spearstone.biz 4 4 32 8 0 0 0 0 6 46
causeydental.com 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1
drjamesmccormick.com 9 146 38 28 23 24 43 28 24 207
louisianawood.com 3 4 4 0 1 0 0 0 3 7
daudrecandles.com 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
agnesshicksart.com 13 13 15 51 20 1 43 17 0 145
angelicscentsationsllc.com 22 27 41 81 73 164 6 2 19 385
welshequip.biz 8 8 6 0 11 1 2 6 0 25
randyswoodshop.com 1 1 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 8
parsonagebedandbreakfast.com 22 22 0 39 0 2 54 0 0 94
rareranch.com 16 17 35 13 30 0 56 22 83 238
garlandindustriesllc.com 3 3 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 2
bayoustyle.com 123 149 143 69 54 86 98 107 144 700
daudrecandles.com 2 2 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 3
banglesbasketsandscents.com 6 6 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 3
ggsilvertrumpet.com 31 66 8 12 38 22 9 24 20 132
AVERAGE 19.8 31.9 39.3 36.9 22.7 27.4 28.4 20.0 22.5 197.2
Hits  12
Table 2. Visiting Time for Rural Business Websites 
Website 0s-30s 30s-2m 2m-5m 5m-15m 15m-30m 30m-1h 1h+ Avg. Visit
surfinginward.com 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
ihshomecare.com 62 7 3 7 8 8 6 585
barefootcreations.biz 92 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
judiekramer.com 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
ducknaked.biz 83 5 4 1 3 3 0 142
spearstone.biz 75 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
causeydental.com 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
drjamesmccormick.com 38 3 0 0 0 34 24 1808
louisianawood.com 75 25 0 0 0 0 0 30
daudrecandles.com 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
agnesshicksart.com 46 23 15 0 0 0 0 111
angelicscentsationsllc.com 70 15 0 7 4 0 0 120
welshequip.biz 63 25 0 0 0 0 0 32
randyswoodshop.com 0 0 100 0 0 0 0 210
parsonagebedandbreakfast.com 86 9 0 0 5 0 0 81
rareranch.com 47 24 18 0 6 0 0 150
garlandindustriesllc.com 67 0 0 0 0 0 33 15
bayoustyle.com 78 10 5 4 1 1 1 124
daudrecandles.com 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
banglesbasketsandscents.com 100 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
ggsilvertrumpet.com 83 3 5 2 0 6 0 200
Average 69.7 7.1 7.1 1.0 1.2 2.5 3.0 177.5   13
Website Access by Day of Week
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
 
Figure 1. Website Access by Day of Week for Rural Businesses  14
Website Access by Hour
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
1:00 AM
2:00 AM
3:00 AM
4:00 AM
5:00 AM
6:00 AM
7:00 AM
8:00 AM
9:00 AM
10:00 AM
11:00 AM
12:00 PM
1:00 PM
2:00 PM
3:00 PM
4:00 PM
5:00 PM
6:00 PM
7:00 PM
8:00 PM
9:00 PM
10:00 PM
11:00 PM
12:00 AM
 
 
Figure 2. Website Access by the Hour for Rural Business Websites 
 
   15
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Average Length of Website Visit
0s-30s
30s-2m
2m-5m
5m-15m
15m-30m
30m-1h
1h+
 
 
Figure 3. Visiting Time for Rural Business Websites 
   16
 
 
How was the Website Found?
address
search engine
external page
internal page
 
Figure 4. Discovery Method for Rural Business Websites 
 

E-Commerce and Internet Use in Small Businesses: Trends and Issues,” Working Paper,

E-Commerce and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Regional Communities,”

Electronic Commerce Adoption: An Empirical

Gender Differences and E-commerce Behavior and Perceptions,”

Internet Shopping: The Supermarket Model and Consumer Perceptions,”

Shoppers Flock to Internet, Driving Sales, Earnings, Share,” This Week in Consumer Electronics,

The Digital Economy Challenge Facing Peripheral Rural Areas,” Progress in Human Geography,

The Impact of Interactivity and Design Sophistication on the Performance of

Understanding what ANOVA Post-hoc Tests Are, Really.

Website Usage Information for Rural-Based E-Commerce Start-Ups

Website Usage Information for Rural-Based E-Commerce Start-Ups

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