Abstract
We conduct an empirical study on the search and purchasing behavior of buyers on an Austrian price comparison site. On such a market a consumer typically searches for the cheapest price of a given product. Reliability and service of the supplier, however, are other important characteristics of an offer. We find robust evidence of consumer behavior that can be described as a two-stage procedure: shoppers first select a group of candidate offers based on the price only; then, in the actual buying decision consumers tradeoff a lower price with higher reliability of the retailer.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 395-408 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | German Economic Review |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2011 |
Externally published | Yes |