Assortment levels, pupillary response, and product preference

Abstract

ABSTRACT Nowadays, many online retailers allow consumers to flexibly change the assortment size in a product display. Therefore, assessing the impact of varied assortment levels on consumers’ cognitive process and decision outcome is of great interest to marketers. Using consumers’ pupil size as a biological indicator of their cognitive process during decision-making, we empirically examine how varied assortment levels affect consumers’ product preferences through their cognitive responses. Our results show that a larger assortment size prompts consumers’ pupils to constrict, indicating a lower level of cognitive workload. Consumers’ pupil size moves in the same direction with the price levels of the chosen option and the opposite direction with the familiarity of the chosen option. The mediation test demonstrates that the relationship between the assortment levels and product preference is statistically mediated by consumers’ pupillary response during decision-making.