Consumer Information Search Research Articles

Consumer characteristics as drivers of online information searches

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate consumer characteristics (gender, subjective knowledge of product category, susceptibility to social influence, attitude to internet shopping and internet use) having a bearing on the proportion of online information searches conducted using personal and impersonal information sources, and to explore which of these factors impact the use of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).Design/methodology/approachA real-time longitudinal design is used to survey 274 consumers about their information searches when shopping for high involvement goods.FindingsSusceptibility to normative social influence and internet use prove the main drivers of the inclination to resort to the internet to conduct searches using personal information sources. Subjective knowledge also positively impacts the proportion of time spent online conducting searches using personal information sources. Men and consumers with a positive attitude to internet shopping use a greater proportion of impersonal online information sources. Complementary analyses show that the use of eWOM is driven by almost all consumer characteristics (except gender) investigated.Originality/valueBy using a real-time longitudinal approach, this study directly addresses calls for more research into information searches by investigating multi-channel source use in actual purchase situations and minimizing bias relating to forgotten information, while facilitating the collection of more valid data on consumer information search behaviour. The paper also ranks as one of the first to revisit the drivers of the proportion of online information sources in personal and impersonal sources in the era of Web 2.0.

Not all digital word of mouth is created equal: Understanding the respective impact of consumer reviews and microblogs on new product success

The expansion of the Internet and social media have triggered a differentiation of the word-of-mouth (WOM) concept, with consumer communication about brands and products now taking place in various settings and forms. Two important digital WOM types are microblogs and consumer reviews. To clarify their differential roles for product success, this study offers a theoretical framework of the influence of these two types of WOM, drawing from consumer information search theory and diffusion theory. The tests of the proposed framework use a longitudinal data set of video game sales and weekly information gathered from microblogs (i.e., over 13 million tweets from Twitter) and consumer reviews (i.e., more than 17,000 Amazon consumer reviews). Analyzing a system of equations provides evidence that the influence of microblogs and consumer reviews on new product success changes over time. Prior to launch, the volumes of microblogs and consumer reviews, together with advertising, represent primary sales drivers. After launch, the volume of microblogs is initially influential, then loses impact, whereas the impact of the volume of consumer reviews continues to grow. The valence of consumer reviews gains significance only near the end of the observation period, but the valence of microblogging is never influential.

Too Much Information? Information Provision and Search Costs

A seller often needs to determine the amount of product information to provide to consumers. We model costly consumer information search in the presence of limited information. We derive the consumer’s optimal stopping rule for the search process. We find that, in general, there is an intermediate amount of information that maximizes the likelihood of purchase. If too much information is provided, some of it is not as useful for the purchase decision, the average informativeness per search occasion is too low, and consumers end up choosing not to purchase the product. If too little information is provided, consumers may end up not having sufficient information to decide to purchase the product. The optimal amount of information increases with the consumer’s ex ante valuation of the product, because with greater ex ante valuation by the consumer, the firm wants to offer sufficient information for the consumer to be less likely to run out of information to check. One can also show that there is an intermediate amount of information that maximizes the consumer’s expected utility from the search problem (social welfare under some assumptions). Furthermore, this amount may be smaller than that which maximizes the probability of purchase; that is, the market outcome may lead to information overload with respect to the social welfare optimum. This paper can be seen as providing conditions under which too much information may hurt consumer decision making. Numerical analysis shows also that if consumers can choose to some extent which attributes to search through (but not perfectly), or if the firm can structure the information searched by consumers, the amount of information that maximizes the probability of purchase increases, but is close to the amount of information that maximizes the probability of purchase when the consumer cannot costlessly choose which attributes to search through.

Consumer information search behavior and purchasing decisions: Empirical evidence from Korea

Recently, Internet activity by consumers adopting innovation or purchasing products has increased markedly. To understand this phenomenon, our study focuses on the correlation between purchase behavior and search activity. Utilizing the product classifications established in previous studies, we classify physical products into durable, nondurable, and industrial goods. We then empirically analyze case studies to determine the correlation between Internet searches and product purchases. Our research results show that the correlation between sales and search traffic is more significant for consumer goods than for industrial goods; furthermore, in the consumer goods category, search traffic is a particularly strong predictor of sales in the case of consumer durable goods. These results may be self-evident, implicit in the definition of each product category. However, the presented findings confirm that even among nondurable goods, search traffic can be a significant predictor of purchases, depending on both price and frequency of purchases. In contrast, for durable goods, search traffic may not be strongly indicative of actual purchases for new products, for which traffic simply reflects rising interest. We also show that PC searches are a stronger predictor of sales than mobile searches. The conclusions drawn from this study provide an important foundation for effectively using search statistics in technology business management to formulate marketing strategies as well as to forecast and analyze the adoption of new technology based on real-time monitoring of the changing involvement with each product.

A Study on the Activities of Touch Point and Consumer Information Search in the Multimedia Environment

The purpose of this study is, in the situation that consumers use not only online news but social media as information delivery media, based on web data, to examine the effect of touch point activities in two media different according to product types on consumer search activities. To do this, we traced the patterns of information diffusion according to time, by extracting the number of the web postings of the information about the products from on-line news and blogs on a weekly or monthly basis, and identified consumer search activities about the goods by using their search traffics provided on a weekly basis by portal sites As a result of the study, it turned out that touch point activities and consumer search activities are different from each other in two media different according to product types. Specifically speaking, as for utilitarian goods, it appeared that there were correlations between the touch points and consumer search activities of the two different information media. In particular, more similarity in the patterns of information diffusion was found in the news sites than in the blogs. In the case of hedonic goods, the correlations between touch points and consumer search activities showed different results according to the time intervals. A monthly analysis showed that the consumer search activities had correlations not with on-line news, but with blogs. On the contrary, a weekly analysis showed that they had higher correlations with blogs than with on-line news sites though having correlations with both the two.

Too Much Information? Information Provision and Search Costs

A seller often needs to determine the amount of product information to provide to consumers. We model costly consumer information search in the presence of limited information. We derive the consumer’s optimal stopping rule for the search process. We find that, in general, there is an intermediate amount of information that maximizes the likelihood of purchase. If too much information is provided, some of it is not as useful for the purchase decision, the average informativeness per search occasion is too low, and consumers end up choosing not to purchase the product. If too little information is provided, consumers may end up not having sufficient information to decide to purchase the product. The optimal amount of information increases with the consumer’s ex ante valuation of the product, because with greater ex ante valuation by the consumer, the firm wants to offer sufficient information for the consumer to be less likely to run out of information to check. One can also show that there is an intermediate amount of information that maximizes the consumer’s expected utility from the search problem (social welfare under some assumptions). Furthermore, this amount may be smaller than that which maximizes the probability of purchase; that is, the market outcome may lead to information overload with respect to the social welfare optimum. This paper can be seen as providing conditions under which too much information may hurt consumer decision making. Numerical analysis shows also that if consumers can choose to some extent which attributes to search through (but not perfectly), or if the firm can structure the information searched by consumers, the amount of information that maximizes the probability of purchase increases, but is close to the amount of information that maximizes the probability of purchase when the consumer cannot costlessly choose which attributes to search through.

Switching health insurers: the role of price, quality and consumer information search.

We examine the impact of price, service quality and information search on people’s propensity to switch health insurers in the competitive Dutch health insurance market. Using panel data from annual household surveys and data on health insurers’ premiums and quality ratings over the period 2006–2012, we estimate a random effects logit model of people’s switching decisions. We find that switching propensities depend on health plan price and quality, and on people’s age, health, education and having supplementary or group insurance. Young people (18–35 years) are more sensitive to price, whereas older people are more sensitive to quality. Searching for health plan information has a much stronger impact on peoples’ sensitivity to price than to service quality. In addition, searching for health plan information has a stronger impact on the switching propensity of higher than lower educated people, suggesting that higher educated people make better use of available health plan information. Finally, having supplementary insurance significantly reduces older people’s switching propensity.

Examining the measurement and dimensionality of the construct of consumer awareness in a developing and transition economy

Orientation: Literature suggests that major political and socio-economic transformations may influence the measurement and dimensionality of consumer awareness. Research purpose: The study examined the measurement and dimensionality of the construct of consumer awareness after transformation in the political and socio-economic environments in Zimbabwe. Motivation for the study: There is a dearth of research to validate whether or not the measurement and dimensionality of the construct of consumer awareness changes as the environment changes. Research design, approach and method: Data were collected from a cross-section of 305 consumers using interviewer-administered questionnaires. Consumers were intercepted at shopping malls. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse data. Main findings: The study confirmed that consumer awareness comprises five dimensions, namely product knowledge, bargain hunting, general consumer knowledge, price consciousness and information search. However, the study found that only 16 items, instead of the proposed 25, were relevant in measuring consumer awareness. Product knowledge, bargain hunting and information search were each measured by four items, whilst general consumer knowledge and price consciousness were each measured by two items. The other nine items were shown to be of no value. Practical/managerial implications: The study recommends that marketers and policymakers in developing and transition economies, such as Zimbabwe, consider these five dimensions when conducting consumer awareness research or when planning consumer awareness programmes. Contribution/value-add: The study provided evidence that the dimensionality of the construct of consumer awareness does not change as the socio-economic and political environments change. However, items used to measure the dimensions need to be updated from time to time.

Determinants of willingness to look for separate international roaming services—An empirical study of mobile communication customers in Germany

International roaming (IR) makes it possible to conveniently use mobile communication services (MCS) such as voice calling, text messaging and Internet access abroad without the hassle to switch providers, devices or SIM cards. In order to support a competitive intra-European Union (EU) market for IR services, consumers were enabled to buy IR services separate from their existing domestic MCS as of July 2014. Therefore, an understanding of determinants of residential customers’ willingness to look for separate IR services is of interest both for regulators and providers. Based on a review of three theoretical lenses (innovation adoption, service provider switching, consumer information search) the present study develops nine hypotheses on the level and on determinants of consumers’ willingness to look for separate IR services. The hypotheses are tested in a sample of 510 German-speaking MCS users. PLS analysis reveals that the constructs associated most strongly with the willingness criterion are IR price knowledge, expected risks of separated IR services (e.g., low savings, inaccurate bills) and expected ease of switching to unbundled IR offerings. Implications of the findings are reflected for the theoretical framings, regulators, firms entering the market for unbundled IR services and established mobile network operators defending their IR business.

Role of Social Media in Pre-purchase Consumer Information Search: A Uses and Gratifications Perspective

The ICT’s brought new opportunities for gathering pre-purchase product information. With the help of social media, Consumer Information Search (CIS) has been more refined and specified. The purpose of this study is to identify the need categories of pre-purchase Consumer Information Search based on Uses and Gratifications theory. The model was examined through fully structured questionnaire by using bivariate and factor analysis on a sample of 246 respondents. This study was conducted in Chinese context; therefore results and implication are limited because western social media is quite different than eastern social media. The contribution of this study presented four social media need categories that influence consumer information search (cognitive, social integrative, affective and personal integrative). The finding showed that entertainment and pleasure with social interactions are vital need categories for pre-purchase information search. For enhancing CIS behavior, marketing managers have to provide more information about product & its usage and should use consumer engagement tools for increasing social interaction such as building online brand communities. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n1p11

Impact of celebrity endorsements in disease-specific direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertisements

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects on consumer response between disease-specific advertising containing a celebrity compared to a non-celebrity endorser. Design/methodology/approach – A randomized, cross-sectional two (endorser type) by two (levels of disease state involvement) factorial design was used. Respondents (over the age of 18) were randomly shown one of the ad types and then responded to an online survey questionnaire containing questions and various scales measuring disease state involvement, endorser credibility, attitude toward the ad and company, attention to the ad, behavioral intentions and information search behavior. The disease-specific ad stimuli modeled the form of current print direct-to-consumer ads and were created following recent Food and Drug Administration guidelines, with the only difference being the specific pictorial used (celebrity versus non-celebrity). Findings – While endorser type did not significantly affect consumer attitudes, behavioral intentions and information search behavior, level of disease state involvement, though, did. More highly involved consumers had more positive attitudes, behavioral intentions and greater information search behavior. Originality/value – While consumers paid more attention to the celebrity-containing ads and viewed them as more credible, this did not translate into significant effects on the outcome dependent variables of consumer attitudes toward the ad and company, behavioral intentions and information search behavior. As previous literature has suggested, level of disease state involvement was a significant predictor of respondent outcomes. Overall, pharmaceutical manufacturers might want to re-evaluate using a celebrity endorser in disease-specific ads, as this research shows the benefits/outcomes may not justify the cost.

The Antecedents and Moderators of Offline Information Search: A Meta-Analysis

An examination of consumer information search literature reveals that the effects of several antecedents (cost, price dispersion, knowledge, prior experience) on offline information search vary greatly in terms of the directions and magnitudes of the determinants’ effect sizes, particularly indicating the possibility of inverted-U shaped relationships. Also, despite a wide range of studies undertaken, there remains a need for identifying an overarching framework for consumer information search. This article synthesizes previous empirical studies on offline information search literature, and attempts to provide and test a framework that advances our understanding of the current state of this literature. The review identifies significant antecedents to offline information search, and also tests the moderating effects of demographic variables and study conditions on the direct effects. In the context of the main effects, findings suggest that the nature of relationships of several antecedents with the central construct is indeed inverted-U shaped. Further, moderator analyses identify the boundary conditions under which specific theories hold. The closing section provides future research directions.

The Role of Information Quality of a Website

Understanding the nature of information quality in the context of consumer information search on a website is vital for Information Systems as well as for marketing managers who want to use their websites for strategic purposes. This study brings together the Information Systems (IS) Success Model and consumer information search literature to propose and test a comprehensive model investigating information quality, and extends the IS Success Model. Our model tests antecedents to and consequences of information quality of a website. Findings on data collected from 575 respondents reveal that perceived cost and self efficacy (among others) are significant antecedents to information quality. Findings also reveal that information quality significantly affects online WOM and trust, which has implications for managing users on social media as well as on websites. This study adds to the literature on IS and on consumer information search, and offers practical guidelines for managers.

Advertising: A Fusion Process between Consumer and Product

The study of consumer behavior explains how individuals make decision to spend the resources (time, money etc) available to them for purchasing an item for consumption. Many questions arise in the mind of the consumers before buying a product. It may be personal or product related. During the decision making process the consumer passes through five stages. The stages are (Need recognition →Information search→ Evaluation of Alternatives →Purchase decision →Post purchase Evaluation). Consumers search for information before buying any product or service. According to the decision making process consumers evaluate the alternatives available to him before purchasing the product. Advertising plays an important role during the phase of information search. A company in the market always looks for the prospective client to sell their goods or service they are offering in the market. Advertising serves the company as a medium of communication. The marketers can penetrate the untapped market. The number of prospects increases so as the revenue collection for the company.This empirical research paper tries to find out the effect of advertisement in the decision making process among the consumers. The objectives of the study are-1.Advertising influences the consumer decision making process.2.Kind of product that consumers purchase on the basis of advertising information.3.Previous knowledge about the product is more important than advertising or not.4.Factors other than advertising influences the decision making process.Research is been dependent on primary data. Data has been collected from Kolkata metropolitan only. A closed questionnaire has been developed to collect the primary data. Data was collected from college students and office employees by the process of snowball sampling. By their reference data was collected from their colleagues and relatives also. Numbers of respondents were

Measuring Product Type with Dynamics of Online Product Review Variances: A Theoretical Model and the Empirical Applications

A significant body of literature in information systems, marketing, and economics has shown the important implication of the distinction between experience products and search products (“product type”) on consumer information search, marketplace design, and firm strategy. However, how to empirically measure product types remains a challenge, and this challenge is further complicated by the growth of online commerce and the increasing availability of online reviews that have transformed the nature of many products and altered the traditional perception of these products. The objective of this research is to propose an online product review-based measure that could accurately reflect consumers’ perception of a product, as search or experience dominated product. Based on the definitions of search and experience products — whether information can be easily transferred or not — we propose a data-driven method that can be used to infer product type from statistical analyses of online product reviews. Our theoretical analyses indicate that the variance of the ratings should decrease as more consumers rate a pure search product; for experience products however, the variance of the ratings may remain constant or increase depending on the importance of the experience attributes in determining consumer utility. We demonstrate the empirical applications of this approach at the category, product, and attribute levels using product reviews data from Amazon.com, Yelp.com, and Ctrip.com, respectively. In addition, a user study conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk shows our review-based measure to outperform Nelson’s (1970) product classification, which historically has been the standard in determining product type. Overall, this new measure provides an easy to implement, less subjective and more accurate measure of product type. Therefore, researchers and practitioners can use this measure to better understand how consumers perceive products and to design strategies accordingly.

Information search in pension plan decisions

This study empirically investigates consumer information search behaviour with respect to supplemental employer-based and private pension plans. The analysis shows that households collect as much information from their social environment as from experts. Regarding the dissemination of information, this suggests that governments should put more emphasis on information that is easily accessible to general public.

웹검색 트래픽 정보를 활용한 지능형 브랜드 포지셔닝 시스템 : 태블릿 PC 사례를 중심으로

As Internet and information technology (IT) continues to develop and evolve, the issue of big data has emerged at the foreground of scholarly and industrial attention. Big data is generally defined as data that exceed the range that can be collected, stored, managed and analyzed by existing conventional information systems and it also refers to the new technologies designed to effectively extract values from such data. With the widespread dissemination of IT systems, continual efforts have been made in various fields of industry such as R&D, manufacturing, and finance to collect and analyze immense quantities of data in order to extract meaningful information and to use this information to solve various problems. Since IT has converged with various industries in many aspects, digital data are now being generated at a remarkably accelerating rate while developments in state-of-the-art technology have led to continual enhancements in system performance. The types of big data that are currently receiving the most attention include information available within companies, such as information on consumer characteristics, information on purchase records, logistics information and log information indicating the usage of products and services by consumers, as well as information accumulated outside companies, such as information on the web search traffic of online users, social network information, and patent information. Among these various types of big data, web searches performed by online users constitute one of the most effective and important sources of information for marketing purposes because consumers search for information on the internet in order to make efficient and rational choices. Recently, Google has provided public access to its information on the web search traffic of online users through a service named Google Trends. Research that uses this web search traffic information to analyze the information search behavior of online users is now receiving much attention in academia and in fields of industry. Studies using web search traffic information can be broadly classified into two fields. The first field consists of empirical demonstrations that show how web search information can be used to forecast social phenomena, the purchasing power of consumers, the outcomes of political elections, etc. The other field focuses on using web search traffic information to observe consumer behavior, identifying the attributes of a product that consumers regard as important or tracking changes on consumers` expectations, for example, but relatively less research has been completed in this field. In particular, to the extent of our knowledge, hardly any studies related to brands have yet attempted to use web search traffic information to analyze the factors that influence consumers` purchasing activities. This study aims to demonstrate that consumers` web search traffic information can be used to derive the relations among brands and the relations between an individual brand and product attributes. When consumers input their search words on the web, they may use a single keyword for the search, but they also often input multiple keywords to seek related information (this is referred to as simultaneous searching). A consumer performs a simultaneous search either to simultaneously compare two product brands to obtain information on their similarities and differences, or to acquire more in-depth information about a specific attribute in a specific brand. Web search traffic information shows that the quantity of simultaneous searches using certain keywords increases when the relation is closer in the consumer`s mind and it will be possible to derive the relations between each of the keywords by collecting this relational data and subjecting it to network analysis. Accordingly, this study proposes a method of analyzing how brands are positioned by consumers and what relationships exist between product attributes and an individual brand, using simultaneous search traffic information. It also presents case studies demonstrating the actual application of this method, with a focus on tablets, belonging to innovative product groups.

An experimental examination of consumer attitudes, behavioral intentions, and information search behavior after viewing a predictive genetic test direct‐to‐consumer advertisement

PurposePredictive genetic tests (PGTs) have greatly increased their presence in the market, and, much like their pharmaceutical peers, companies offering PGTs have increasingly used direct‐to‐consumer advertising as part of their promotional strategy. Given many PGTs are available without a prescription or physician order and the lack of empirical research examining the effects of PGT‐DTC, this paper seeks to examine consumer attitudes, intentions, and behavior in response to a PGT‐DTC ad with and without a prescription requirement.Design/methodology/approachA single factor, between subjects online survey design with the presence or absence of a prescription requirement as the experimental variable was used to evaluate consumers' attitudes, intentions, and behavior in response to a predictive genetic test DTC advertisement. A minimum sample size of 198 was determined a priori and 206 surveys were completed within five hours of deployment to 600 randomly selected general consumer participants for a response rate of 34.3 percent (206/600), with 106 in the prescription requirement group and 100 in the non‐prescription group. Descriptive statistics, t‐tests, and chi‐square techniques were used to examine the various dependent variables (consumer attitudes, behavioral intentions, and the pre‐defined behavior measure) and their differences.FindingsOverall, consumers hold favorable attitudes to PGT‐DTC ads, but did not intend to engage in physician discussion, take the test or perform information search behavior. The effect of a prescription requirement was not significant, as no differences were seen with the attitude and behavioral intention dependent variables.Originality/valueAt this still relatively young point in the PGT cycle, consumers still seem to be skeptical about the value of predictive genetic tests and their associated DTC advertisements.

A review of research on direct‐to‐consumer advertising of prescription drugs

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review empirical research on direct‐to‐consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs published in journals over the period from 1997 to 2012.Design/methodology/approachA structured review of 130 published studies on direct‐to‐consumer advertising of prescription drugs was conducted.FindingsBased on the structured review, the authors identified seven key research themes in DTCA. These are: consumers' attitudes toward direct‐to‐consumer advertising, physician‐patient interaction, content of DTC advertisements, awareness, literacy and memory, consumer information source and search, effect of DTCA expenditures on financial performance, and physicians' attitudes toward DTCA.Research limitations/implicationsAvenues for future research are proposed. Future research needs to focus on more empirical studies, television DTCA, online and emerging media DTCA, new and improved measures, ethical issues and regulations, diverse countries, and nurse and pharmacist attitudes towards DTCA.Originality/valueThe primary contribution of this paper is a thorough understanding of the state‐of‐the‐art in research on DTCA and future research directions.

Consumer information search and credence services: implications for service providers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the involvement levels and the information search activity of consumers purchasing credence services, in terms of the extent of the search and the information sources used. Design/methodology/approach – A survey was undertaken (n=400) examining consumers ' information search practices for a range of credence services in comparison to non-credence services (search and experience services). Findings – Involvement in the search process is high in terms of importance but not interest. Somewhat surprisingly, consumers of credence services do not undertake a more comprehensive information search than non-credence service purchasers in terms of the use of external sources of information. They do, however, depend more on the opinion of salespeople, the experience of friends and the content of consumer reports. Research limitations/implications – The results of this study differ from similar work that was previously undertaken with students and also in the USA. It would be useful to establish more strongly whether age and culture have an impact on information search. Originality/value – This is the first time that the information search patterns of consumers of credence services have been undertaken for a wide range of common purchases in the UK. It is also original in this area of research in that it utilises a cross section of the population and not students. Its findings are important to the providers of credence services when considering their marketing communications campaigns because it reveals which marketing communication tools are considered by the consumer to be influential.