MARKETING

Marketing



Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate how different online decision-making processes used by consumers, influence the complexity of their online shopping behavior. During an online experiment, subjects were asked to perform a shopping task on a website offering product recommendations. Significant differences were observed between subjects' decision-making process and their online shopping behavior. Subjects who did not consult a product recommendation had a significantly less complex online shopping behavior (e.g., fewer web pages viewed) than subjects who consulted the product recommendation. Surprisingly, no differences were found between the online shopping behavior of subjects who consulted but did not follow the product recommendation and subjects who consulted and followed the product recommendation. Managerial and theoretical implications of these results are provided.

Table of Content

Introduction4

Literature review5

Product recommendations and decision-making processes5

Online product recommendations6

Online shopping behavior and clickstream analysis7

Hypotheses8

Methodology9

Sample9

Procedure9

Measures11

Variables11

Results13

Discussion13

References17

Marketing

Introduction

The objective of this paper is to investigate how different online decision-making processes used by consumers to make a product choice influence the complexity of their online shopping behavior. When faced with a product selection, consumers are suggested to perform an internal search (e.g., relying on their prior knowledge of brands) and, if necessary, an external search. The latter may comprise activities such as gathering more information about brands and seeking recommendations from relevant others.

Thus, different consumers may use different decision-making strategies to make a consumption decision. Furthermore, consumers shopping online may modify or change the way they search for information to take advantage of certain unique characteristics of the Internet. For instance, the presence of new information sources such as recommender systems, intelligent-agent-based systems and less easily accessible sources offline (e.g., opinions of a large group of consumers on a specific product) may modify the way, in which consumers perform their external information search (Bearden, 1982, 183). In this paper, we investigate the effect of different decision-making processes on consumers' shopping behavior (e.g., decision time, pages visited, etc.) while performing an online goal-directed activity, namely, the selection of a product. When applied to the Internet, the effect of various decision-making processes on consumers' shopping behavior leads to interesting questions.

For instance, do consumers who consult and follow an online product recommendation have a less complex shopping behavior than consumers who do not consult or who do consult but do not follow a recommendation? Answers to such questions have important managerial and theoretical implications. First, they would help marketers maximize the effectiveness and usability of their websites. Thus, by investigating the effect of consumers' decision-making process on their online shopping behavior, this paper contributes to better understand how consumers search for information and make their decisions online (Ardnt, 1967, 291).

Literature review

Product recommendations and decision-making processes

If a product recommendation from an information source is available to consumers, they can either decide not to consult it, consult and follow it, or consult and not follow it. If they decide not to consult the product recommendation, consumers would rely only on their prior knowledge or experience and on other information about the products to make a ...