Designing product list on E-commerce web sites: The effect of sorting on consumer decision

Abstract

One common information display design which appears in nearly all the electronic shopping sites is the product list. Many electronic shopping sites have provided sorting functions for product quality attributes. However, the extant literature has not been particularly insightful on how consumers respond to product list sorted in different ways. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of sorting product list based on product quality in three orders (ascending, descending, and random) on consumersb perceptions of product quality importance, price importance, and consideration set formation. Results from a carefully designed experiment showed that, when product quality and price are positively but not perfectly correlated, participants who exposed to a descending list perceived quality and price to be more important and they tend to include products with higher quality and price in their consideration set, compared to other product lists. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.