Product fit uncertainty and its effects on vendor choice : an experimental study

Matt, C; Hess, T (2016). Product fit uncertainty and its effects on vendor choice : an experimental study. Electronic markets, 26(1), pp. 83-93. Springer 10.1007/s12525-015-0199-5

Preview

Text 9 Matt_Hess (2016) - Product Fit Uncertainty.pdf - Published Version Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (542kB) | Preview

Recommender systems and other Internet-enabled technologies have changed the surrounding conditions of prepurchase evaluations on the Internet. In some cases consumers can now sample entire products prior to a purchase – hereby removing all uncertainty about whether a product fits their taste. While previous research has mainly focused on vendor and product quality uncertainty, it is still not clear how declining product fit uncertainty affects consumers. To close this gap, we conducted a laboratory experiment to analyze the effects on consumers’ vendor selection.We find that full elimination of product fit uncertainty is beneficial for vendors, as it increases both the number of purchases and consumer loyalty. Interestingly, if product fit uncertainty is only partially eliminated, consumers do not necessarily show differential behavior for different levels of remaining product fit uncertainty. This has important implications for online vendors that consider the implementation of additional means to reduce product fit uncertainty.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

157 since deposited on 17 Oct 2017
90 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item