Consumer decision support systems: Internet versus in-store application

This paper reports a study of consumer decision support in the context of Internet and in-store applications. A sample (n = 30) of experienced runners made running shoe selections in either ‘product only’, ‘decision support system only’, or ‘decision support system and product’ conditions. Participants’ decisions tended to be more uniform and of better quality when the DSS was available. Decision making was clearly influenced by DSS recommendations, but these were not always accepted. In this latter circumstance participants reported themselves to be relatively less happy with and less confident in their decision. Consistent with previous literature, abstract attributes were considered more frequently and given higher weightings when using the decision support system. However, predicted differences between conditions with respect to the types of attributes considered and the importance ascribed to different types of attributes were not found.