Buying Online: Sequential Decision Making by Shopbot Visitors

Bernhard Weiss, Uwe Dulleck, Franz Hackl () and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

No 2008-10, Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Abstract: In this article we propose a two stage procedure to model demand decisions by customers who are balancing several dimensions of a product. We then test our procedure by analyzing the behavior of buyers from an Austrian price comparison site. Although in such a market a consumer will typically search for the cheapest price for a given product, reliability and service of the supplier are other important characteristics of a retailer. In our data, consumers follow such a two stage procedure: they select a shortlist of suppliers by using the price variable only; finally, they trade off reliability and price among these shortlisted suppliers.

Keywords: e-commerce; price comparison; decision theory; heuristics; seller reputation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 L81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-mkt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Buying Online: Sequential Decision Making by Shopbot Visitors (2008)
Working Paper: Buying Online: Sequential Decision Making by Shopbot Visitors (2008)
Working Paper: Buying Online: Sequential Decision Making by Shopbot Visitors (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jku:econwp:2008_10

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