CLICK-TRACKS: CONSUMERS' ONLINE INFORMATION SEEKING BEHAVIORS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR SELLER STRATEGIES

摘要

Recent developments in information and digitization technologies have substantially increased the amount of information about consumers available to sellers. The Internet for instance, allows online sellers to track the search behaviors of consumers at a fine-grained level - information that can potentially be of great value to firms. An in-depth understanding of consumers' online search behaviors can help firms design optimal marketing, segmentation, promotion, pricing, and positioning strategies, among others. While prior research has largely relied on static information such as demographics, and aggregate information such as time spent online, and time spent at various parts of a shopping website (Moe and Fader 2004), greater power is proffered by the analyses of online consumer behavior dynamic clickstream data (Montgomery et al. 2004). In particular, understanding the differences in consumers' search behaviors online, and more importantly understanding their relationships with underlying consumer preferences promises to open up new avenues not only for research, but also for practice. For instance, the ability to infer who their consumers are (underlying latent preferences and utilities) from what they do online (search patterns, alternatives selection strategies, and purchase behaviors) would be of great interest to retailers. This knowledge would be useful in a) predicting consumers' behaviors at various stages of the shopping process, b) explaining the effects of website features that lead to (un)favorable outcomes, and c) optimizing interactions with customers at their websites through customized promotions/recommendations.