Clicks to conversion: the value of product information and price incentives

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Publication Type Journal Article
School or College David Eccles School of Business
Department Accounting & Information Systems
Creator Ramachandran, Vandana
Other Author Viswanathan, Siva; Lucas, Henry C.
Title Clicks to conversion: the value of product information and price incentives
Date 2010-01-01
Description This study uses clickstream data obtained from a large online durable goods retailer to examine how different types of information - product-related and price-related information provided by retailers - impact purchase-related outcomes for consumers. Using mixture-modeling techniques to analyze latent differences among customers, we find that consumers fall under three distinct categories - directed shoppers, deliberating researchers and browsers. In examining the impacts of information on purchase outcomes, we find that product and price-related information impacts consumers in these three shopping states differently. While product information highlighting features of product alternatives in a category has the strongest impact on deliberating researchers, specific price incentives related to category-level discounts increases the likelihood of purchase for both directed shoppers as well as browsers. Price incentives relating to site-wide free shipping have a positive impact on purchase for all consumers. Surprisingly, category-level discounts have a negative impact on deliberating researchers, while rich product information hampers the purchase process of directed shoppers. We discuss the managerial implications of our findings and the role of clickstream analytics in designing dynamic targeting and information provisioning strategies for online retailers.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
First Page 1
Last Page 56
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Language eng
Bibliographic Citation Ramachandran, V., Viswanathan, S., & Lucas, H. C. (2010). Clicks to conversion: the value of product information and price incentives. University of Utah, working papers, 1-56.
Rights Management (c)University of Utah
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 616,904 bytes
Identifier uspace,16989
ARK ark:/87278/s6611j2m
Setname ir_uspace
ID 707909
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6611j2m