Internet shopping, consumer search and product branding

: Recent interest in the Internet as a medium for commerce has raised questions about the usefulness of branding on the World Wide Web. In this paper we examine whether consumers use brands as sources of information when shopping on the Internet. Applying theory from the economics of information, we predict that recent adopters of the Internet will be less proficient at searching for product information and will rely more on brands. As they gather more experience on the Internet, their search proficiency should rise and their brand reliance should fall. These hypotheses are tested and confirmed using usage and opinion survey data from the Internet community. These results suggest that branding can facilitate consumers acceptance of electronic commerce. KEYWORDS: electronic commerce, advertising, consumer search 1 INTRODUCTION Commerce on the Internet, or e-commerce, has experienced rapid growth during its infant years. The pace is not expected to slacken. Forrester Research estima...