| Abstrakt: |
Due to the relatively low cost in searching and switching, the competition among brands is extremely fierce in online platforms. To accurately analyze brands’ competitiveness in online platforms, this research examines the heterogeneous consumer groups’ browsing path dependence among related brands, deploying the clickstream data of 2,563 consumers with 18,212 browsing records from one of the largest online platforms in China. We use the duration analysis method to scrutinize how path dependence can better characterize different consumer groups’ browsing behavior in different product categories. Our analyses demonstrate the high accuracy of using the consumers’ browsing path dependence to explain the pattern of consumer behavior, as well as identify the spell of the behavior of heterogeneous consumer groups. These results provide nuanced implications to strategically manage the branding, marketing, and customer management in online platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
