Consumers' travel website transferring behaviour: analysis using clickstream data-time, frequency, and spending

Using clickstream data, this research aims to predict e-travellers' purchasing behaviours by observing websites transferring phenomena. Clickstream data are useful in predicting e-travellers' behaviours, in that they provide the detailed transactional information that is tracked and recorded [Bucklin, R.E., Lattin, J.M., Ansari, A., Gupta, S., Bell, D., Coupey, E., et al. (2002). Choice and the Internet: From clickstream to research stream. Marketing Letters, 13(3), 245-258]. This research proposes that an e-traveller's purchasing behaviour is explained as a function of search motivation and on-site involvement. An e-traveller who deliberately enters a travel website in a direct access manner (i.e. typing the URL) is hypothesized to be linked with a goal-directed search motivation, whereas a referring website transferred consumer (i.e. transferred from other websites) is associated with an exploratory search motive. An e-traveller who approaches a travel website in direct access manner is expected to purchase more in comparison with a website transferred e-traveller. Subsequently, the relationship between situational involvement level and purchasing behaviour as an on-site effect is examined. The website duration and the number of pages viewed within a travel website are linked to the involvement levels (i.e. high vs. low) by the dual cognitive paths (i.e. central route vs. peripheral route). Lastly, the interaction effect between website transfer and the website duration, the number of pages viewed on the purchased amount, is examined. Using 1190 online panels, hierarchical regression analysis is performed to test the proposed research questions. The results reveal the referring website transferred consumers purchase less than non-site transferred e-travellers. The longer an e-traveller stays on the website and the fewer pages viewed, she or he is more likely to purchase. However, this effect is reversed for the website transferred group of e-travellers.