Buying Online: Sequential Decision Making by Shopbot Visitors

Uwe Dulleck, Franz Hackl (), Bernhard Weiss and Rudolf Winter-Ebmer
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Bernhard Weiss: JKU Linz, Austria

No 31, NCER Working Paper Series from National Centre for Econometric Research

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)
Pages: 26
Date: 2008-08-18
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
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:qut:auncer:2008-20

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