Online Information Search Termination Patterns Across Product Categories and Consumer Demographics
Amit Bhatnagar & Sanjoy Ghose

For several decades, marketing academics have been intrigued by how consumers search for product information. This importance assigned to information search arises from its integral role in consumer decision-making theory. According to this theory, consumers first recognize a need, then seek information, and finally make a purchase. Since it is well established in the traditional marketing literature that purchase decision is based on the information obtained in the second stage, marketers have always been greatly interested in learning about various facets of consumers’ information search behavior. During the last few years, the Internet has emerged as an important source of information for consumers. As consumers have increasingly started tapping into the Internet for information, marketers have developed an interest in understanding how consumers seek information online.

In this study, we empirically examine how information search behavior varies by consumer demographics and product categories. Trade literature shows that managers consider website stickiness to be an important concept, as it is believed to be a major determinant of a site’s success. Site stickiness is typically measured in terms of how often consumers visit a site, and how much time they spend on each visit. We therefore measure the extent of search undertaken by an individual in a product category along these two dimensions –amount of time spent before terminating search per visit and the number of visits per month.

Based on our analysis, we found that older consumers spend more time seeking information online than younger consumers. Consumers with higher levels of education and with greater Internet experience also spend more time on each search episode. Men are also likely to spend a longer time than women before they terminate their search process. Consumers search for the longest time before terminating search while seeking information about apparel; followed by that for computer software, travel arrangements, music CDs/tapes/albums, and recreational equipment, respectively. Consumers with greater experience with the Internet and higher education levels, search most frequently. Consumer search frequency is not affected by age or gender. Consumers search most frequently while inquiring about travel arrangements, followed by that for music CDs/tapes/albums, computer software, apparel, and recreational equipment, respectively.

For certain product categories, we found that if a consumer searches for information in one of the product categories, he/she can find information in the other product categories in relatively less time. This happens because when consumers search in one product category, they learn how to seek information. However, this learning does not occur in all product categories. The three product categories where we see consumer learning, i.e., music, software and travel, are search goods, whereas the two product categories where we do not see learning, i.e., apparel and recreational equipment are experience goods. The explanation is perhaps that while search attributes can be ascertained over the Web, experience attributes cannot. Therefore, if consumers learn how to examine the search attributes of one product, they can use this learning to examine the search attributes of another product. However, this learning would not take place for experience attributes.

The results obtained above are very useful for designing communication strategies, website design, etc. Since, we find that consumers search less frequently in apparel and recreational equipment, online retail firms of apparel and recreational equipment can target their site visitors with marketing communication encouraging them to search more frequently. Low frequency searchers can, for example, be targeted with banner ads encouraging them to immediately enroll in "frequent browser" programs.

Our findings indicate that a retailer whose site is targeted at younger, less educated consumers, or specializes in recreational equipment, can specifically provide instant sales promotions or exciting information about subjects of interest to keep the customer at the site longer. Most website designers have the ability to create multimedia websites that can dramatically improve the appeal of their sites. However, as the multimedia content on a site increases, the download time also increases. This problem is more severe for the large number of consumers who access the Web from home on slow dial-up lines. A manager often has to decide between creating a simple text-based site, contents of which can be easily downloaded and a sophisticated multi-media site with high download time. The manager should base this decision on the profile of the target segment. If the target segment is characterized by older, more educated men with high Internet experience, managers should prefer multi-media sites. Similarly, retailers providing information online about apparel, music CDs/tapes/albums, software should have more multimedia content on their sites.