It is commonly observed that different regions within a country, especially a large one, vary in their tendencies to adopt e-tailing services. This paper attempts to recognise some of the region-specific characteristics that can account for these variations, and presents a simple regional e-tailing adoption model. Combining the diffusion of innovations (DOI)theory and the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework of consumer behaviour, this paper hypothesises relationships between various regional-level people-related attributes and e-tailing adoption behaviour, and empirically validates those using ordinary least squares and Poisson regression. To gauge e-tailing levels of different regions, primary data were collected from India Post on packages delivered in April–May 2016 across Indian districts for a large e-tailer operating in India. Results demonstrate a significant influence of regional-level technological access, learning readiness, personal transport availability, and economic status, but no impact of financial services access on e-tailing adoption. Using the significant factors, a neural network model is able to classify regions into high/low e-tailing potential with 78% accuracy. The findings of this study could offer practical insights to e-tailers for their domestic expansion strategies.
