Beyond the "mobile versus PC" dichotomy: Profiling online shoppers based on device usage

2017 ◽  
pp. 99-121
Author(s):  
Francesca De Canio ◽  
Marco Ieva ◽  
Cristina Ziliani

Availability of a growing number of devices for information searching and purchasing online is affecting consumer habits and company strategies. This paper investigates device usage patterns in the online Deal of the Day (DoD) shopping process. The study employs a cluster analysis of respondents based on their device usage. Four clusters emerge and are profiled by means of a benefits and costs approach based on demographic and psychographic characteristics. Multi-device behaviours for information search and DoD purchasing and multi-device behaviours are found to be dominant. Smartphone exclusive users display higher purchase frequency than multi-device segments. Tablet and smartphone users are found to be Market Mavens. Several implications for marketers are discussed.

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-118
Author(s):  
Edward Boon ◽  
Nir Ofek

Deal of the day is a form of e-commerce in which an intermediary allows merchants access to a subscriber list, to promote their offerings at a discount. This study performs a cluster analysis on the purchase history of a deal intermediary, to identify customer segments based on their purchase frequency, price sensitivity and the types of deal they buy. Five segments were identified, including a large group of customers who made one purchase and then stopped buying, a small group of extremely deal-prone subscribers, and a segment that limits their purchases to very few types of product (e.g. restaurant meals or spa treatments). The findings further show that targeting deals to specific customers may be desirable in the future to prevent information overload and ensure loyalty.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abu Shamim Mohammad Arif ◽  
Jia Tina Du

Purpose Collaborative information searching is common for people when planning their group trip. However, little research has explored how tourists collaborate during information search. Existing tourism Web portals or search engines rarely support tourists’ collaborative information search activities. Taking advantage of previous studies of collaborative tourism information search behavior, in the current paper the purpose of this paper is to propose the design of a collaborative search system collaborative tourism information search (ColTIS) to support online information search and travel planning. Design/methodology/approach ColTIS was evaluated and compared with Google Talk-embedded Tripadvisor.com through a user study involving 18 pairs of participants. The data included pre- and post-search questionnaires, web search logs and chat history. For quantitative measurement, statistical analysis was performed using SPSS; for log data and the qualitative feedback from participants, the content analysis was employed. Findings Results suggest that collaborative query formulation, division of search tasks, chatting and results sharing are important means to facilitate tourists’ collaborative search. ColTIS was found to outperform Tripadvisor significantly regarding the ease of use, collaborative support and system usefulness. Originality/value The innovation of the study lies in the development of an integrated real-time collaborative tourism information search system with unique features. These features include collaborative query reformulation, travel planner and automatic result and query sharing that assist multiple people search for holiday information together. For system designers and tourism practitioners, implications are provided.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomei Xu ◽  
Zhirui Ye ◽  
Jin Li ◽  
Mingtao Xu

Bicycle-sharing systems (BSSs) have become a prominent feature of the transportation network in many cities. Along with the boom of BSSs, cities face the challenge of bicycle unavailability and dock shortages. It is essential to conduct rebalancing operations, the success of which largely depend on users’ demand prediction. The objective of this study is to develop users’ demand prediction models based on the rental data, which will serve rebalancing operations. First, methods to collect and process the relevant data are presented. Bicycle usage patterns are then examined from both trip-based aspect and station-based aspect to provide some guidance for users’ demand prediction. After that, the methodology combining cluster analysis, a back-propagation neural network (BPNN), and comparative analysis is proposed to predict users’ demand. Cluster analysis is used to identify different service types of stations, the BPNN method is utilized to establish the demand prediction models for different service types of stations, and comparative analysis is employed to determine if the accuracy of the prediction models is improved by making a distinction among stations and working/nonworking days. Finally, a case study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology. Results indicate that making a distinction among stations and working/nonworking days when predicting users’ demand can improve the accuracy of prediction models.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-59
Author(s):  
Joachim Stöter

This article describes how numerous studies on student usage of various digital applications, social media and networks are available but studies on study-related media usage typologies are rare. Based on the instruments developed by Zawacki-Richter, Müskens, Krause, Alturki, and Aldraiweesh, as well as Zawacki-Richter, Kramer and Müskens, a short questionnaire was developed and tested with a cohort of 72 students. The results of the factor analysis suggest statistically relevant scales, which are suitable for classifying students along their media usage patterns through a subsequent cluster analysis. The three clusters that were determined can be compared with the usage types from Zawacki-Richter et al. During the instructional design process these heterogeneous groups and their media usage should be taken into consideration. The identified items can be applied in order to develop qualitative interviews for a deeper understanding of the usage types.


2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ah Keng Kau ◽  
Yingchan E. Tang ◽  
Sanjoy Ghose

This article aims to examine the online buying behavior among a group of Internet users. Based on a sample of over 3,700 Internet users, this study explores their information‐seeking patterns as well as their motivations and concerns for online shopping. Factor analysis and cluster analysis were used to classify the respondents into six types of online shoppers. Coupled with their demographic information and actual buying behavior, it was possible to constitute a distinct profile for each of the segments. Discriminant analysis was also conducted to seek out the important attitudinal variables that differentiated the various clusters of online shoppers. The implications of such classification are also discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 807-822 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyue Ma ◽  
Pengzhen Xue ◽  
Siya Zhang ◽  
Nada Matta ◽  
Chunxiu Qin ◽  
...  

Purpose Visual Distinctive Language (VDL)-based iconic tags are structured visual information annotation. They explicate the content and organization of tagged information by graphical and symbolic features in order to improve the vocabulary problems of textual tags. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how these special icons help in tagged-based user information searching. Design/methodology/approach A two-stage experiment was designed and conducted so as to follow and quantify the searching process in specific searching target case and no specific searching target case when using VDL-based iconic tags. Findings The experimental results manifested that VDL-based iconic tags enhanced the role of tag in information searching. They could make user better understand tag clusters, which, in turn, provide global structure of involved topics. Also, VDL-based iconic tags helped user to find out searching target more quickly with higher accuracy by taking advantages of visual representation of tag categories and symbolic signification of tag content. Originality/value This study is one of the first to verify how structured icons work in information searching and how user’s graphical cognition impacts on tag-based information searching process. The research findings are dedicated to the theory of VDL-based iconic tags, as well as to a new visualization method for search user interface design.


2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-670
Author(s):  
Daria Bębeniec ◽  
Małgorzata Cudna

Abstract In this article, we present a corpus-based analysis of two major types of the Polish Complete Path (CP) construction in which a source-PP, headed by od+GEN, is immediately followed by a goal-PP, headed by do+GEN or po+ACC, as in od jesieni 1920 do jesieni 1921 ‘from autumn 1920 to autumn 1921’ and od kreskówek po rysunki techniczne ‘from cartoons to technical drawings’. The aim of the study is to shed some light on the polysemous structure of the CP construction on the basis of its usage patterns. To this end, we used a random sample of over 500 instances of both construction types retrieved from the National Corpus of Polish. The data were annotated for a number formal and semantic features and subsequently explored using hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis. When interpreting the results of several analyses performed on different sets of variables, we gave special attention to three levels of semantic granularity encoded in the data, concluding that, on the whole, all analyses point towards a distinction between the spatial, temporal and abstract meanings of the construction under investigation.


Author(s):  
Anna Kågedal

Experiences from creating an online course for Public Health students This paper aims to present the development of an online course in which teachers and librarians cooperated closely to create a syllabus that aims to allow students to fulfill the following goals: learn how to find, search and critically examine information about Public Health Arenas, acquire referencing and citing skills, practice in giving and receiving constructive feedback. Setup The librarians created a lesson for the course with the following content: short film clip to enhance focus on the importance of being able to find and evaluate proper information in the work life, lecture on ways to think in order to enhance information searching skills, tutorial for a major database, collection of links to sites on reference management and reference management programs. In the course there were Information literacy (IL) tasks especially aimed at finding scientific articles and managing references for writing a paper. The IL tasks were written by the teacher and librarian together. Grading and feedback were done by librarians. Results The first time the setup did not work very well. When students handed assignments to the librarian, few seemed to have followed the instructions. Few students referred to searching in databases, and few had actually found and chosen relevant scientific articles for their assignments. The students were not able to examine the reference management of their peers in an acceptable manner. A plausible explanation is that since they couldn't manage their own references well, they couldn't examine their peers performance either. In preparation for the next round (fall 2012), the teacher and librarian got together to come up with a way to help the students perform better. Together they evaluated the IL task setup, and came up with the idea that the IL part, where the students were to describe how they found relevant material to work with, had to precede the actual writing of the paper, and could be assessed as a separate task by the librarian. This would ensure that students would not write papers based on substandard sources, but on articles approved by the teachers. The information search became a separate task that was to be handed in and approved by the librarian before the students could start writing their papers. The lectures, film and tutorial were left untouched. The reference management was still peer examined and evaluated by the librarian. The difference in results was remarkable. Information searching skills, reference management skills and the overall subject skills were improved compared to the previous course. Allthough the teaching librarian and teacher noticed a remarkable difference from one semester to another, and the teacher saw remarkable change throughout the course in managing sources, the number of students in the fall 2012 were too few to actually draw any firm conclusions. In spring 2013 there are more students taking the course and it will be interesting to see how they perform.


10.28945/2647 ◽  
2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
W J. Taylor ◽  
G. X Zhu ◽  
J. Dekkers ◽  
S. Marshall

This paper aims to identify associations between demographic and socioeconomic factors and home Internet use patterns in the Central Queensland region, Australia. It found that people living outside of Rockhampton, male, those with higher education levels, married, those with higher income level, or fully employed tend to use Internet more for work at home; people living in Rockhampton, those within the youngest group (18-24), or with secondary education level or higher tend to use Internet more for education; people living in Rockhampton, those within the youngest group, never married, or unemployed tend to use Internet more for entertainment; males, people within the youngest group, those with lower family income, or either semi-employed or unemployed tend to use Internet more for information search; females, people with no children, or lower family income tend to use Internet more for communication through email; married people tend to use Internet for financial management; and people within 25-39 year old group, with higher education levels tend to use Internet more for on-line purchases. It is suggested that further research should be conducted to monitor the youngest age group in home Internet use for entertainment and information search.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishna Akalamkam ◽  
Joy Kumar Mitra

Pre-purchase information search is an integral part of consumer decision-making process and buying behavior. Understanding consumer information search behavior is vital for organizations in order to plan their communication strategy and reach consumers effectively. Though consumer information search behavior is extensively studied in traditional brick and mortar purchase situations, there is dearth of research in understanding consumer information search behavior in online shopping occasions. Given the rapid growth in electronic retail over the last few years, it is imperative to understand consumer information search behavior in online buying situations. This study investigates the factors that influence the extent of usage of different information sources in pre-purchase information search by online shoppers through an empirical research among 1079 online shoppers. The analysis of data using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) shows that consumers tend to use both traditional offline information sources and online information sources when they shop online. However, the preference for different online and offline information sources is likely to be different for hedonic and utilitarian products. Individual factors, such as Internet usage experience, need for cognition and age, also tend to influence consumer preference for different online and offline sources. This has important implications for e-marketers as they may need to use different communication channels depending on the nature of the product and the characteristics of their target consumers to effectively promote their offerings.


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