The Consumer Decision-Making Process in Two Different Web Stores

Abstract

This paper reports on Consumer Decision-Making Process (CDMP) strategies in Web-based shopping in two different Web stores, one selling gifts and other selling mobile phones. Results indicate that the occurrence of a ‘non-compensatory’ (i.e., eliminating product alternatives by their attributes) CDMP strategy when the participants were viewing a single Web page with more than four product alternatives was significantly higher than with three or less product alternatives. Indeed, when the number of products on a single page of the gift store reached 16 or more, the occurrence of the ‘non-compensatory’ CDMP strategy was 100%. The results also indicated that the higher the number of products on the screen, the lower the percentage of products considered. Problems associated with the use of the think-aloud technique to measure CDMPs associated with Web shopping are discussed.

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