A review on consumer external search: Amount and determinants

Consumer external search continues to be a fruitful research area. The bivariate relationships between a number of variables and the central construct, amount of information search, have been proposed, theorized, and empirically tested in the literature. This paper extensively examines the current status and importance of consumer information search with close attention on empirical findings on the subject. While some research findings converge on the bivariate relationship between some variables and amount of information search, e.g., a positive relationship between perceived risk and search effort, some studies found conflicting results on the relationship between other variables and the central construct. There are also some non-linear relationships found between a few variables such as experience and the degree of search. Some hypotheses are also proposed and discussed.