Agricultural e-commerce insights: Bibliometric analysis of innovations and supply chain effectiveness

The rapid digitalisation of agricultural markets has boosted e-commerce platform adoption, fueled by emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT). Despite growing scholarly interest, studies on agricultural e-commerce remain fragmented across technologies, regions and contexts, hindering a holistic view of the intellectual structure and evolution of the field. This study addresses this gap by systematically mapping global agricultural e-commerce research and examining how blockchain, AI and IoT are positioned within the literature in terms of: (i) the global evolution of agricultural e-commerce research; (ii) the dominant and emerging thematic trends; and (iii) the positioning of digital technologies in relation to supply-chain efficiency and market access. A bibliometric analysis was conducted of 820 publications indexed in Scopus and Web of Science using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer, to analyse publication trends, country and source contributions, keyword co-occurrence, and thematic evolution. The findings reveal a sustained growth in research output since 2015, with a pronounced surge after 2020, led primarily by China, the United States and European countries. Blockchain, IoT, AI, smart contracts and food security emerged as dominant and increasingly interconnected research themes. Viewed through the lens of transaction cost economics, blockchain is primarily associated with traceability and trust formation; IoT with monitoring and logistics visibility; and AI with analytics and coordination efficiency. Although empirical evidence remains limited, these technologies are positioned as complementary transaction-cost reduction mechanisms that may support supply-chain efficiency and market access. The study contributes by providing a theory-informed reorganisation of fragmented agricultural e-commerce research.