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1、ONLINE CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGYPrior to the widespread retail use of electronic media such as the Internet in the mid- to late-1990s, one of the primary methods firms used to meet the needs of consumers was to divide the overall heterogeneous market into smaller, homogeneous segments, with the goal being
2、 more precise satisfaction of individual wants and needs (Smith, 1956). Such efforts resulted in an increase in the availability of products that match consumers preferences, but at the cost of offering large,high-variety assortments . This type of strategy ultimately led to the creation of large ca
3、tegory-killer stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City where dozens of product variants are displayed in order to appeal to a wider range of consumers than possible at much smaller stores that carry more narrow assortments of products. Although such a strategy makes it more likely that retailers wil
4、l carry products that consumers desire, sorting through such large assortments is extremely effortful for consumers, to the point where the size of the assortment can create dissatisfaction with the process and can decrease the likelihood that the consumer will actually select a product consistent w
5、ith his or her preferences (Huffman& Kahn, 1998; Keller & Staelin, 1987). In order to better facilitate a match between consumers preferences and firms product offerings without increasing the burden on the consumer, companies have recently begun using new media to implement collaborative strategies
6、 with individuals (Kahn, 1998; Prahalad & Ramaswamy,2000; Sheth, Sisodia, & Sharma, 2000), facilitated in large part by the interactive nature of the Internet, which makes two-way, real-time communication between firms and consumers economically practical (Hoffman & Novak, 1996). Consistent with thi
7、s capability, seven of the top ten Internet retail sites tailor some part of their product offerings to the preferences of individual consumers, altogether grossing nearly $4 billion in 2000 (National Retail Foundation, 2000). This use of new technology to market to individual consumers allows firms
8、 to engage in marketing activities not previously feasible. Although merchants have helped consumers sort through alternatives for centuries, and skilled artisans have made build-to-order products available long before mass production was common place,the advent of interactive communications, flexib
9、le manufacturing, and just-in-time delivery systems has made it economical for many companies to offer different products to individual consumers on an unprecedented scale. These new technologies enable firms to employ individualized efforts that enhance both the likelihood of purchase as well as co
10、nsumers post purchase satisfaction by providing products that match consumers preferences as closely as possible. In the course of attempting to achieve such matches, however, the product selection process has been transformed in such a way as to influence consumers decision processes. Instead of pa
11、ssively viewing the product offerings that a firm has to offer and deciding which ones they like best as might have been done in the past, consumers now play an active role in determining what products are offered to them for consideration. Although these changes in consumer-firm interactions are de
12、signed to enhance the likelihood that consumers obtain products that match their preferences, they also have other unforeseen, and perhaps negative, implications for consumers decision processes. In particular, we expect that consumers perceptions of control will be affected by the differences in ho
13、w products are offered, and that these differences will in turn influence consumers evaluations of chosen products. In this chapter we investigate the role that perceived control plays in two strategies that firms may employ in order to meet the needs of individual consumers, personalization and cus
14、tomization, and compare it to what occurs when consumers make a selection from an assortment of available alternatives, as that was commonly the case prior to the changes enabled by new media. In the next section we shall discuss each of these methods by which consumers can select products in more d
15、etail.Each of the strategies employed by firms for offering products requires consumers to follow a script of activities in order to facilitate the choice process. Thus, we refer to the different ways that consumers identify and choose alternatives as product selection protocols. There are several d
16、ifferent types of product selection protocols as well as various combinations of these types. In this chapter we focus on three that are commonly employed by firms: assortment, personalization, and customization. Each of these product selection protocols differs from the other two in several ways th
17、at are relevant to consumers decision processes. We shall discuss the protocols in terms of their provisions (the particular benefits that the selection protocols provide to consumers), their demands (the costs that the selection protocols cause consumers to incur), and their constraints (the limita
18、tions that the selection protocols impose upon consumers). Based on differences between protocols, we identify the defining characteristics of the protocols (what, in particular, conceptually distinguishes one type of protocol from others). We next discuss the effects of these characteristics on con
19、sumers perceptions of control, and then two studies designed to determine some of the control-related outcomes that we expect.Assortment refers to a product selection protocol in which consumers are offered an array of alternatives from which to choose. The aim of this protocol is to provide consume
20、rs with alternatives of sufficient variety such that they will find one that is suitable for purchase. These alternatives usually represent all of the unique product offerings that the firm has available in a particular product category and are typically organized in some fashion. In order to meet t
21、he heterogeneous needs of many individual consumers, firms may offer very large assortments of products, as might be the case of a car dealership that offers multiple makes and models. As the number of different attributes and attribute levels of the product increases, so does the number of alternat
22、ives that are displayed in an all-inclusive assortment.In addition to organizing the alternatives in the assortment (say, by brand, model,or other feature), firms also may provide indicators for consumers that show where directory, signage around different sets of alternatives, or other displays tha
23、t are designed to aid consumers in determining where different products are located within the array. In an online environment, retailers using an assortment strategy might display or describe all of their offerings together on the same page, or possibly have a listing of alternatives on a page with
24、 links to other pages where the alternatives are described in further detail.Rather than simply letting consumers find their own way though the firms offerings,some firms employ a mechanism whose task is to help consumers ascertain which products from among the firms offerings best meet any particul
25、ar consumers personal preferences. This mechanism may take the form of a salesperson in a store, or perhaps that of a search and recommendation tool on a firms Web-site.Both act as agents for the firm, and thus, although they aid the consumer in locating a product to purchase they also may be biased
26、 in that they have the firms, and not the consumers, best interests at heart. This process, whereby an agent attempts to understand the individual consumers preferences with respect to a particular domain or product category and then presents the consumer with recommended alternatives, is referred t
27、o as personalization (Haubl & Trifts, 2000).Although each of these protocols may provide consumers with the same range of alternatives from which to choose, they allow consumers to arrive at their selections by employing different types and amounts of attribute specification. With assortment, consum
28、ers indirectly specify the attributes to be included in the products they select by choosing from among the prespecified alternatives that are presented to them. With personalization, consumers again select among the prespecified options explicitly offered. In addition, however, consumers may also b
29、e asked to provide information about their preferences, in essence specifying some of the criteria to be used in the recommendations that the firm will provide. With customization, consumers are able to directly specify some or all of the attributes to be included in the products that they consider
30、for selection. These differences in specifiability have significant implications for consumers decision processes, in particular on consumers perceptions of control while choosing an alternative.Assortment, personalization, and customization provide consumers with different levels of specification,
31、which in turn has important implications for how consumers value the products they select. Assortment provides consumers with little opportunity to directly specify the attributes to be included in a selected product, but it does make salient the range of options that are available to choose from. T
32、his lack of specifiability suggests that consumers may perceive little behavioral control over the alternative selected, while the salience of a wide range of options may lead consumers to perceive they have considerable decisional control. With personalization,consumers again are unable to directly
33、 specify the attributes to be included in the products they select. However, if their preferences are directly elicited, they may perceive that they have some input to the specification of the alternatives that are offered, and thus perceive greater behavioral control than when choosing via assortme
34、nt. Because the number of alternatives made salient via personalization is less than that of assortment, consumers should also perceive less decisional control with personalization than assortment. Consumers choosing an alternative via customization should perceive that they have greater behavioral
35、control than consumers choosing via assortment or personalization as customization allows for direct specification of the attributes to be included in the product selected. However, perhaps because only the specified attribute is made salient, consumers may perceive that they have less decisional co
36、ntrol than via the other two product selection protocols. Thus, consumers selecting via assortment should perceive little behavioral control but considerable decision control, while for consumers selecting via customization, these should be reversed. With personalization, consumers should perceive a moderate level of each.
