A theory of cutoff formation under imperfect information
Management Science
Reducing buyer search costs: implications for electronic marketplaces
Management Science - Special issue: Frontier research on information systems and economics
E-commerce and the information market
Communications of the ACM
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
Frictionless Commerce? A Comparison of Internet and Conventional Retailers
Management Science
Internet Shopping Agents: Virtual Co-Location and Competition
Marketing Science
Management Science
On the Depth and Dynamics of Online Search Behavior
Management Science
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While the amount of search that a consumer can undertake in a unit of time has increased due to the internet, the search space has exploded as well. Thus, compared to offline markets, for a fixed amount of search effort, the number of sellers that a customer can find relative to the number of sellers in a market is lower in online markets: searchability of online markets is low. This paper enumerates the logic behind searchability and proliferation of online loyalty programs to show why low searchability enhances the viability of online loyalty programs. Search aids, such as shopbots, influence searchability. The impact of shopbots on loyalty programs is examined. We find that shopbots in an online market can make a consumer worse off in the presence of a loyalty program, because shopbots list sellers on the basis of prices, and do not offer information on loyalty programs or discounts thereof. In this manner, we conclude that, the net impact of shopbots on searchability of an online market is low.