Mr. Outwater is among the 17% of U.S. primary household shoppers who say they never shop on Amazon, according to data from Kantar Retail ShopperScape. While the percentage has steadily declined over the past five years, roughly 22 million American households didn’t use the retailer this year.

Some 80% of U.S. adults had either a smartphone or a home broadband subscription in 2015, according to Pew Research. Lack of access to web-enabled devices, or living in places where it is difficult to receive packages, are key reasons people avoid e-commerce, said Stefan Weitz, chief strategy officer at retail technology provider Radial.

“There’s still a decent amount of fear and mistrust with the web,” Mr. Weitz said. “And 80% of consumers still want to go to browse and shop in-store.”

Misleading headline and subtitle from the WSJ. Of course there will always be segments of the population unwilling to shop one way or with a specific retailer. The article should have focused on the declining portion of that survey population.