The Effect of Gender and Product Categories on Consumer Online Information Search

Abstract

This article analyzes clickstream data collected from a popular online retailer to observe actual consumers' information search behavior in terms of both gender and product categories. The results show that, compared to males, females tend to be comprehensive processors, searching for more product information including customer reviews and using an assistant agent more while shopping online. Also, unlike males, females use both customer reviews and the assistant agent significantly more when shopping for experience goods than when shopping for search goods. These results will help academics and practitioners to have a deeper understanding in consumer behavior in the online context.