Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Liu, Lin
• Wang, X. Henry
• Shen, Tongyuan

Titel

Partial‐depth search and search pattern comparisons

Ist Teil von

• Managerial and decision economics, 2024-04, Vol.45 (3), p.1333-1342

Ort / Verlag

Chichester: Wiley Periodicals Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley Online Library All Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This paper compares consumers' optimal search behaviors and firms' strategic reactions in prices under two modes of search: parallel search and sequential search, with the incorporation of partial search depth that measures the amount of information to evaluate a product. Our analysis shows a series of new results: when products are partially evaluated, search depth is greater under sequential search than under parallel search; consumers search for (on average) more products either under parallel search or sequential search, depending on whether partial‐depth search is chosen; the equilibrium price is higher under parallel (sequential) search when search costs are high (low). Interestingly, parallel search might yield higher equilibrium prices with more products searched, compared with sequential search. This challenges the conventional wisdom in the search literature that more products searched lower prices because of the intensified competition.