The study of consumer buying behavior covers various processes starting when consumers recognize a need until they purchase, consume, and dispose of a product or service. An important phase in the process mentioned above is the consumer decision-making phase. It is related to the process when consumers face a set of choices until they make their final purchasing decision. The issue addressed is not only related to the process, but also to decision quality as the outcome of the process. Understanding consumer decision-making is a crucial issue for helping consumers to obtain their desired products efficiently with rewarding experiences. Furthermore, it provides important clues for product providers to acquire insights on consumers' requirements. For years, consumer decision-making was st...[ Read more ]

The study of consumer buying behavior covers various processes starting when consumers recognize a need until they purchase, consume, and dispose of a product or service. An important phase in the process mentioned above is the consumer decision-making phase. It is related to the process when consumers face a set of choices until they make their final purchasing decision. The issue addressed is not only related to the process, but also to decision quality as the outcome of the process. Understanding consumer decision-making is a crucial issue for helping consumers to obtain their desired products efficiently with rewarding experiences. Furthermore, it provides important clues for product providers to acquire insights on consumers' requirements. For years, consumer decision-making was studied in the context of product selection. A new and emerging method to facilitate consumer decision-making, called product configuration, opens up a new avenue in consumer-provider interactions and provides a new instrument for studying consumer behavior.

This research is to compare product configuration with product selection processes, in terms of decision quality and decision making strategies, and to study their differences in decision-making time. The research involves experimental investigations of human subjects carrying out decision-making in the Web. The experimental works involve studies comparing differences between decision quality in product configuration and product selection, and explaining why these differences exist. Furthermore, differences between decision-making strategies in product configuration and product selection are sought, and relationships between decision-making strategies and decision quality are also investigated. Knowledge obtained on decision-making strategies is translated into a model to predict the amount of time required for consumer decision-making, based on information theory and other studies of Elementary Information Processes.

Results show that product configuration provides better decision quality with shorter decision-making time as compared to product selection. The differences are attributed to differences in choice representation and shopping method. As compared to representation by alternatives, representation by attributes reduces perceived choice complexity and reduces the number of products needing to be reviewed by consumers, which in turn reduces decision-making time and increases satisfaction with process. Shopping method by configuration enables consumers to choose attributes and attribute levels independently or even change attribute levels in a product. The feedback data indicates that participants experience higher enjoyment and a greater sense of involvement when using configuration, as compared to selection method. This experience leads to better satisfaction with the final decision and satisfaction with the process.

Investigation into the decision-making process showed that participants employed different decision-making strategies in product selection and product configuration processes. In product selection, participants first reduced unwanted product alternatives using elimination method and then performed overall evaluation of product alternatives by making trade-offs among attribute levels, while in product configuration, participants combined the most desired attribute levels from each attribute. Difference in learning has also been observed. In product configuration, participants acquired knowledge about their preferences towards attributes and attribute levels and made fewer trade-offs. This learning, in turn, increases satisfaction with decision and process.

A model for decision-making time was developed and then verified with additional experiments. This model predicts the range of time needed to make decisions as a function of number of attributes and number of attribute levels presented by product provider to consumers.