Adoption of Dynamic Product Information: An Empirical Investigation of Supporting Purchase Decisions on Product Bundles

Up until now, brick-and-mortar stores provide consumers with static product information in the form of printed product labels. This kind of product information does neither adapt to consumer needs nor facilitates new business models (e.g. consumer experience or ad hoc product bundling by products itself). By contrast, dynamic product information provided by mobile recommendation agents (MRA) may leverage these limitations. In this article we formulate a Simplified Consumer Choice (SCC) model that is used as a reference model for investigating dynamic product information provided by MRA. We evaluate this model by implying technology acceptance (TAM) and innovation diffusion theory (IDT). In addition, we assess the SCC model according to decision making theory and analyze whether cognitive load can be reduced by the use of dynamic product information compared with static product information. An experiment (n=37) was conducted to evaluate our hypotheses in which subjects were asked to buy a bundle of two compatible consumer products. Results indicate that the perceived constructs relative advantage and ease of use predict the intention to use dynamic product information. Decision time to buy the product bundle was not significantly reduced if dynamic product information was available. However, cognitive load is suggested to be reduced by dynamic product information in more complex purchase situations. Discussed limitations indicate directions for further research