The Impact of Increasing Search Frictions on Online Shopping Behavior: Evidence from a Field Experiment
通过田野实验发现，在线零售商故意增加搜索折扣商品的难度，能提高平均售价和转化率，因为价格敏感的消费者更愿意为找折扣付出努力，从而实现自我选择的价格歧视。
Many online stores are designed such that shoppers can easily access any available discounted products. The authors propose that deliberately increasing search frictions by placing obstacles to locating discounted items can improve online retailers’ margins and even increase conversion. The authors demonstrate this using a simple theoretical framework that suggests inducing consumers to inspect higher-priced items first may simultaneously increase the average price of items sold and the overall expected purchase probability by inducing consumers to search more products. The authors test and confirm these predictions in a series of field experiments conducted with a dominant online fashion and apparel retailer. Furthermore, using information in historical transaction data about each consumer, the authors demonstrate that price-sensitive shoppers are more likely to willingly incur search costs when locating discounted items. Our results show that increasing search frictions can be used as a self-selecting price discrimination tool to match high discounts with price-sensitive consumers and full-priced offerings with price-insensitive consumers.