Clicks to Conversion : The Impact of Product and Price Information

This study seeks to examine how different types of information – product-related and price-related information provided by retailers – impact purchase-related outcomes for consumers belonging to different states of shopping. Using mixture-modeling techniques on clickstream data obtained from a large online durable goods retailer, we find that a three-state model comprised of directed shoppers, deliberating researchers and browsers, best describes the latent differences across customers. 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 information related to category-level discounts increases the likelihood of purchase for both directed shoppers as well as browsers. Price information relating to site-wide free shipping has 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