The implact of multi-devices on the purchase of paid-contents

Abstract

As revolutionary mobile devices capable of internet communication have introduced, the number of different screens equipped with identical functionalities that a user confronts is increasing. Consequently, digital content providers utilize Multi-Screen strategy providing same content across a variety of platforms. This paper shows that the parameters in existing theoretical frameworks of online consumer utility such as product selection and digital content properties (price) to determine paid-content purchase behavior on multi-screen environment. The goal of the research is to discover the role of the multiple devices and the different screen size devices for paid-content sales from business intelligence perspectives. Experiment methods control for differences in content preferences across smart devices through screen size effects with econometric model. I explore research questions using data from one of the biggest eBook providers in East Asia on eBook sales history over the 12 months from January 2011 to December 2011. I sampled thousands of individual customers who registered a single smart phone, 3 to 4 inch screen, at the beginning of a service, and added one or more devices with larger or similar screen sizes within collected time frame. I show that price sensitivity of content decreases as users register new smart devices and more significantly if a newly added device is a large screen device. In particular, users holding larger screen smart devices appear to respond to increase less popular paid-content purchase performance. Experiment results provide managerial implications to content providers on building a marketing strategy to promote better paid-content purchase performance from users.