Consumers' Online Information Search Behavior and the Phenomenon of Search vs. Experience Products

Abstract

This study investigates consumers' importance evaluation and usage of the Internet as an information source, compared with other traditional information sources. The main issue is the extent to which experience products can be transformed so as to be searchable on the Internet. The results of a web-based survey showed that consumers of experience products tended to use more online information than those of search products. Online information sources from other consumers and neutral sources were perceived to be more important and were used more often by the consumers of experience products; whereas retailer/manufacturer websites were perceived to be more useful by consumers of search products. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, market mavenism, and usage of offline information sources were also positively related to the usage of online information.KEY WORDS: experience products; online information search; search products.Unlike traditional information sources, such as TV, newspaper and magazines, the Internet provides consumers with more interactive communications, which is its unique characteristic as a medium (Porter, 2001). The analysis of how consumers use the Internet as a new information source thus becomes an interesting topic for both

Consumer-Generated versus marketer-generated websites in consumer decision making

“…The overall holiday decision was decomposed into four sub-decisions regarding the holiday accommodation which, following Bei et al (2004), can be situated on a continuum ranging from mainly search-determined to mainly experience-determined. This can be done a priori by the researchers (see for example Bronner & de Hoog, 2008) or can be based on consumer perceptions.…”

“…Based on the results shown in Tables 7 and 8, the postulated preference for eWOM sources when dealing with experience-determined sub-decisions is only confirmed when first a decision was taken to search at all. As a consequence, the original theory of Bei et al (2004) has to be modified into a two-step process: the first step is to believe that you can find useful information for a sub-decision at websites. If this is answered positively, in the second step people tend to turn to consumer-generated sites more frequently than to marketer-generated sites when a subdecision is seen by them as an experience-determined one.…”

“…Search-determined sub-decisions are defined as those dominated by attributes for which full information can be acquired prior to purchase. Experience-determined sub-decisions are dominated by attributes that cannot be known until purchase and use of the product, or for which information searching is more costly and/or difficult than direct product experience (Bei, Chen & Widdows 2004). Several ideas about the relation between information search and experience-versus search-determined subdecisions can be found in the literature.…”

Impact of Quantity and Timeliness of EWOM Information on Consumer’s Online Purchase Intention under C2C Environment

“…Why are the research results different from each other? According to some researchers, product type will influence consumer's reliance on online messages and further impact their online purchase behaviors (Nelson, 1970;Senecal, et al, 2004;Bei, 2004;Song, 2005). We have to consider whether the difference in product type is the factor resulting in this difference.…”

An internet shopping user adoption model using an integrated TTF and UTAUT: Evidence from Iranian consumers

“…Despite many benefits that internet shopping have for customers, for s o m e reasons such as unfamiliarity with the technology (Limayem et al, 2000), distrust to cyberspace (Donthu & Garcia, 1999) and enjoyment of shopping (Bei et al, 2004), internet shopping customers have not received much attention, and internet offering and sales capacity are much greater than internet purchase and demand (Shim et al, 2001). To this end, many studies have been performed in order to expand internet shopping practice among buyers and their overall objective is to increase internet transactions, and internet purchase and sale (Vrechopoulos et al, 2001).…”