Consumers' decision-making process and their online shopping behavior: a clickstream analysis

The objective of this study is to investigate how different online decision-making processes used by consumers, influence the complexity of their online shopping behavior. During an online experiment, subjects were asked to perform a shopping task on a website offering product recommendations. Significant differences were observed between subjects' decision-making process and their online shopping behavior. Subjects who did not consult a product recommendation had a significantly less complex online shopping behavior (e.g., fewer web pages viewed) than subjects who consulted the product recommendation. Surprisingly, no differences were found between the online shopping behavior of subjects who consulted but did not follow the product recommendation and subjects who consulted and followed the product recommendation. Managerial and theoretical implications of these results are provided. (c) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.