The widespread expansion of online markets in the past decade poses several questions for platforms, firms and customers alike. An important dimension to be explored in this domain is the provision of information on e-commerce platforms - given the increasing ease with which product pages can be customized to include a vast variety of content, how do these pieces of information interact? Further, what are the specific channels through which this information eventually influences consumer decision-making? My dissertation is situated in this space, and aims to look at how consumers respond to various “cues” that are being introduced by e-commerce platforms which offer products or services that can be purchased online, and how these cues might eventually influence decision-making. In my first dissertation project, the cue I focus on is user generated content. More specifically, I study how the introduction of the Q&A technology (which enables customers to ask product-specific questions before purchase, and receive answers either from other customers or the platform itself) affects the more widely established reviews and ratings feature
on e-commerce platforms. I find that the addition of Q&As leads to better matches between customers and products, higher customer satisfaction, and resultantly higher ratings. My second project examines another cue that is common in online markets, which is the advertised reference price. My goal in this project is to examine how users react to a specific variant of such prices, namely the “Starting from...” price, using data from a large scale field experiment conducted on Holidu.com. My results indicate that raising “From” prices gives users a more accurate price estimate, but it negatively impacts outbound clicks and other engagement metrics. Taken together, the two projects aim to shed light on factors that influence consumer decision-making in an e-commerce setting, and the possible mechanisms underlying this influence.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/42547 |
| Date | 14 May 2021 |
| Creators | Banerjee, Shrabastee |
| Contributors | Zervas, Georgios |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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