Shopping Cost and Brand Exploration in Online Grocery

Andrea Pozzi

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2012, vol. 4, issue 3, 96-120

Abstract: This paper compares consumers' brand exploration when shopping online versus in a brick-and-mortar store. I use a new scanner dataset to compare the behavior of households shopping online and in-store at the same chain, for identical items and prices. I find that brand exploration is more prevalent in-store. My model quantifies the role of features of e-commerce, like the existence of "favorites lists" and the difficulty in verifying item quality. Limited exploration online implies higher barriers to entry on the Internet channel. Counterfactual exercises suggest that online advertising could make the Internet channel more competitive. (JEL D12, L11, L81, M31, M37)

JEL-codes: D12 L11 L81 M31 M37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.4.3.96
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.4.3.96 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/data/2010-0076_data.zip (application/zip)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/app/2010-0076_app.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Shopping Cost and Brand Exploration in Online Grocery (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:4:y:2012:i:3:p:96-120

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics is currently edited by Johannes Hörner

More articles in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().