Consumer search patterns in online retailing

Abstract

Online retailers routinely rely on sorting, filters, and personalized assortments, but the effectiveness of these design choices depends on how consumers search and decide in digital environments. This research develops a unified and behaviorally grounded framework that conceptualizes consumer search as a context-dependent screening process. Using a novel approach that integrates eye-tracking, mouse-scroll behavior, subjective product preferences, and choice data, we analyze sequences of search events across two studies. The findings show that consumers do not follow a single search strategy but instead adapt their search flexibly to product value and context. Search unfolds as an adaptive screening process in which consumers scan many low-value products, examine a smaller set of higher-value options, and compare only a few top candidates before choosing. Moreover, consumers search less when the overall value of seen products is higher. This framework integrates previously disconnected research streams on decision processes, stopping rules, and consideration set formation, and offers actionable guidance for design and decision-support tools in online retailing.