Dissertation

Empirical Studies in Consumer Shopping Journey: Two Essays Examining Consumer Information Search and Purchase

Basu, Meheli

2020

Overview

This dissertation is directed toward understanding shoppers’ search and purchase processes in both online and offline domains. The first essay in my dissertation examines shoppers’ online omni-channel path to purchase. The second essay analyzes shoppers’ search and purchase in an offline grocery store. In essay 1, I study search and purchase behavior in the digital domain. I examine conversion rates on mobile versus desktop for deadline driven purchases (viz., event tickets) to see how the consumer’s choice of device in the digital path to purchase, influences conversion rates. The path from start to finish is mapped by using browsing and transaction data provided by StubHub and by applying econometric modeling, I study the impact of device switching vs single device use and interaction of device choice with time to event to determine purchase outcomes. The results show that the conversion rate for a PC-only web path is significantly higher than a mobile only path. Purchase likelihood significantly decreases with device switching and is higher for PC-to-mobile switching than for the reverse. In studying the interaction between time-to-event from initial search and device used, initial search on a mobile device results in a lower probability of purchase for distant consumption. Experimental results show that search inconvenience associated with mobile use outweighs purchase risk concerns to impede purchase on mobile. In essay 2, I study shoppers’ sensitivity to nutritional promotions and consequent purchase in the offline domain. This research examines how shopper reaction to nutritional information in retailer promotions impact sales. By analyzing frequent shopper data for 40,000 shoppers during a twenty-seven month period, provided by a regional supermarket chain, this research examines whether sensitivity toward price promotions is affected by heightening the salience of nutritional information via featuring nutrition promotions in the grocery chain’s weekly circular. The central hypothesis is that product level sales is improved by featuring nutrition promotions. Importantly, this research investigates the spill-over effects of nutrition promotions on sales of other products in the same category and the sales of products in a different category. The moderating effects of shopper characteristics (nutrition consciousness and share-of-wallet) and category characteristics (higher vs lower nutrition category) on the effect of nutrition promotion on sales are further studied. Simply adding nutritional information in the price promotion circulars is found to lead to additional increase in weekly product level and category sales. Interestingly, shoppers with higher nutrition consciousness and lower spending at the retailer store react more positively to nutrition promotions. Results also indicate that nutritional information display improves sales more, when featured in lower nutrition categories.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations Publishing
• Subject: Behavioral Sciences / Business administration / Marketing / Nutrition
• ISBN: 9798357528902