Search results

This research reviews numerous studies of the relationship between consumer knowledge and external search in conventional marketing channels to investigate differences among these studies that have produced conflicting results. The findings provide a benchmark for future researchers and practitioners seeking to gain insight into consumer information search processes unfolding in the new environment of online, mobile, and social networking channels.

A meta-analysis of an extensive array of empirical studies of the relationship between consumer knowledge and external information search was conducted. Regression analysis was used to test whether certain characteristics in the studies can explain variability in the effect sizes in which effect sizes are entered as dependent variables and moderators as independent variables.

Objective and subjective knowledge tend to increase search, while direct experience tends to reduce search. Consumers with higher objective knowledge search more when pursuing credence products. However, they search relatively less when pursuing search products. Consumers with higher subjective knowledge are much more likely to search in the context of experience products, but as is the case for objective knowledge having little effect on search for experience products, subjective knowledge has no significant effect on information seeking for search products. In addition, objective knowledge facilitates more information search in a complex decision-making context while higher subjective knowledge fosters more external information search in a simple decision-marketing context. Finally, the findings indicate that the knowledge search relationship reflects strong linkage in the pre-Internet era.

Relatively little is known about how the relationship between knowledge and information search varies across different types of products in simple or complex decision-making contexts. This study begins to fill this gap by providing insight into the relative importance of objective knowledge, subjective knowledge, and direct experience in influencing consumer information search activities for search, experience, and credence products in simple or complex decision-making contexts.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of consumers' shopping orientation on their satisfaction level with the product search and purchase behavior using multi‐channels.

A total of 181 students in a large US mid‐western university provided usable responses to the survey. Exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analyses were employed to examine the research questions.

The results showed that more than three quarters of the respondents shopped via the internet and catalogs, and about 95 percent shopped at non‐local retailers. About 60 percent reported that they never shopped from TV shopping channels. Confident/fashion‐conscious shopping orientation and catalog/internet shopping orientation were found to be key predictors of customer satisfaction level with information search via multi‐channels. Both confident/fashion‐conscious consumers and mall shopping‐oriented shoppers were more satisfied with store‐based retail channels for apparel purchases, whereas non‐local store‐oriented shoppers and catalog/internet‐oriented shoppers were more satisfied with non‐store‐based retail channels for their apparel purchases.

The sample of this study was biased by gender and age. For the apparel retail industry, this paper offers practical knowledge about the relationships between shopping orientation and consumer search and purchase behavior in a multi‐channel retailing context.

No study has utilized the shopping orientation framework to explain consumer behavior in a multi‐channel environment. This study provides understanding of consumer product information search behavior on four dimensions (price, promotion, style/trends, and merchandise availability) via multi‐channels.

Existing literature offers conflicting evidence on how prior product knowledge influences amount of information search. A majority of these studies are based on variants of cost benefit frameworks where consumers engage in search until the benefits from information search exceed search costs. The purpose of this paper is to develop an expectancy theory‐based framework to model consumers' information search and its antecedents, including motivation to search as an intervening construct.

The framework is tested using data from real consumers engaged in their actual purchase decisions, in an emerging market context, using longitudinal survey research design. The data are analysed using structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized model. The model shows an acceptable fit with X2 (271, 487)=640.252, p < 0.00 and 0.95 CFI.

Results indicate that the relationship between prior product knowledge to information search is mediated by motivation to search. Prior product knowledge influences motivation to search through its influence on the consumer's perceived ability to search and his/her perceived value of additional information. Furthermore, perceived ability to search is the strongest predictor of motivation to search. The parsimony of the proposed framework in providing a simpler account of factors influencing the search process along with its managerial implications is discussed.

The findings suggest that perceived ability to search and perceived value of additional information are two important levers that managers could use for achieving desired results. Furthermore, perceived ability to search is an important mediator, which completely mediates the relationship between prior product knowledge and motivation to search. These findings also provide strong indications about the need to simplify the search process for consumers, especially in the context when novelty is predominantly marketed.

The paper introduces a motivational measure of search in the literature and shows that the motivational measure is indeed the proximal measure to other antecedent constructs compared to a behavioral measure of search. Perceived ability to search and perceived value of additional information are shown as important mediators between prior product knowledge and motivation to search.

As the potential of the Internet is gradually realized and its importance progressively recognized, waves of companies are now trying to utilize this new means of commerce by conducting business online and offering their products for cyber‐exchanges. Suppliers in the construction industry, coming to understand the advantages of e‐commerce, have also begun putting their product catalogues online. However, before suppliers can truly benefit from e‐commerce, a comprehensive and user‐friendly electronic product catalogue must be developed so that buyers can easily navigate through e‐markets to find what they need. This paper attempts to review problems of existing electronic product catalogues on construction material websites and presents an electronic product catalogue designed to facilitate easy searching, comparing and evaluating of construction materials.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of assortment size and attribute quantity on the depth and content of consumer information searches.

For a computer-aided experiment using an information display board, participants (n = 393) were placed in a simulated shopping situation that involved choosing a product among three sets of frequently purchased, low-involvement, FMCG alternatives.

The findings show that when the assortment size increases, consumers acquire information from more products and cues but sacrifice product attributes. In particular, this sacrifice comes at the expense of secondary product attributes (e.g. nutrition information, country of origin), whereas primary product attributes (e.g. brand name, price) remain constant. Attribute quantity does not have a significant effect on information search.

Provided that several strategies rely on providing more information to consumers with the aim of making more deliberate and better choices, the findings suggest that they may have a limited effect in product categories in which the assortment size is wide. The authors discuss the implications for category management and public policy.

Information searches are measured by means of three different variables (searched cues, searched products and searched attributes), which enable a more complex exploration of the consumer information search process.

The main purpose of this study is to explore the influence of the country‐of‐origin image, product knowledge and product involvement on consumer purchase decision.

Taiwan, China and the USA were the three countries selected for research into the country‐of‐origin, insurance and catering services. Structured questionnaires and convenience sampling were used. Samples were collected from consumers in the Taipei area. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed with convenience sampling method, and 369 effective samples were collected, the effective rate being 92.25 percent. Stepwise regression analysis was adapted to test hypothesis.

The main findings were listed as follows: the country‐of‐origin image, product knowledge and product involvement all have a significantly positive effect on consumer purchase decision; the country‐of‐origin image has a significantly positive effect on consumer purchase decisions under different product involvement; and product knowledge has significantly positive effect on consumer purchase decisions under different product involvement.

Limitations of the study are: it is unable to infer to national consumers and to other service areas and the explanatory power of some empirical models is relative low. Implications of the study are that: a more thorough structure about consumer purchase decisions should be provided and the relationship between product knowledge and information search quantity should be verified.

Practical implications pf the study are that the company must face competitive strategies from many countries and also the effect of consumer product knowledge on business competitive strategy.

The added value of this paper is to link between theory and practice, and explore the different country‐of‐origin image, product knowledge and product involvement on consumer purchase decisions.

Recent interest in the Internet as a medium for commerce has raised questions about the usefulness of branding on the World Wide Web. Examines whether consumers use brands as sources of information when shopping on the Internet. Applying theory from the economics of information, predicts that recent adopters of the Internet will be less proficient at searching for product information and will rely more on brands. As they gather more experience on the Internet, their search proficiency should rise and their brand reliance should fall. These hypotheses are tested and confirmed using usage and opinion survey data from the Internet community. The results suggest that branding can facilitate consumers’ acceptance of electronic commerce.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between consumer self‐confidence, product expertise, and travel experience in the context of travel information search during vacation planning.

The research design is based on a panel study to monitor trip planning processes of Austrian travelers. A structural model is used to assess to what degree consumer self‐confidence, product expertise, and travel experience affect travel information search and to examine the influence of consumer self‐confidence on product expertise.

Findings from the study show that consumer self‐confidence significantly affects product expertise. Travel experience, on the other hand, positively influences product expertise that again is positively related to travel information search. No significant relationship is established between travel experience and travel information search.

While most of the previous studies investigated information search using cross‐sectional data, this study addresses the need for more accurate research on information search adopting a panel design. One major limitation of the study is the small sample size. Results from a larger sample might be different in regards to the magnitude of the relationships.

This study contributes to the overall understanding of how knowledge and ability‐related factors impact travel information sourcing. The tourism literature reveals no other study that has simultaneously quantified consumer self‐confidence and product expertise during trip planning.

Electronic‐retailing is the buzzword of 2000. Every other press release I receive relates to electronic commerce or Internet shopping. Therefore, it seems appropriate to focus this summer issue of Retail Insights on the subject. The first article by Rowley discusses the phenomenon of shopping bots, the intelligent agents designed to support comparison shopping across a number of Internet sites. She reviews the functions and evaluates the coverage of different shopping bots. In the second article, Wee and Ramachandra assess the level of cyberbuying activities in China, Hong Kong and Singapore by concentrating on the who, why and what of online retailing.