Do consumers prefer offers that are easy to compare? An experimental investigation

Paolo Crosetto and Alexia Gaudeul

No 2011-044, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: Consumers make mistakes when facing complex purchasing decision problems but if at least some consumers choose only among offers that are easy to compare with others then firms will adopt common ways to present their offers and thus make choice easier (Gaudeul and Sugden, 2011). We design an original experiment to identify consumers' choice heuristics in the lab. Subjects are presented with menus of offers and do appear to favour offers that are easy to compare with others in the menu. While not all subjects do so, this is enough to deter firms from introducing spurious complexity in the way they present products.

Keywords: Bounded Rationality; Cognitive Limitations; Common Standards; Consumer Choice; Experimental Economics; Heuristics; Libertarian Paternalism; Pricing Formats; Spurious Complexity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D18 D83 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cis, nep-exp, nep-hme, nep-mkt, nep-neu and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Testing the strength and robustness of the attraction effect in consumer decision making (2014)
Working Paper: Do consumers prefer offers that are easy to compare? An experimental investigation (2012)
Working Paper: Do consumers prefer offers that are easy to compare? An experimental investigation (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-044

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