How reference options affect customer decisions in product configuration

Product configurators have been widely accepted as important toolkits to bridge customer needs and company offerings in the product customization context. In this scenario, the solution space is predetermined and customers specify each of the product's desired attribute options. Motivated by findings in the areas of consumer behavior and psychology, in this study, we examine how reference or default options affect customers' decisions during the configuration process. Specifically, we investigate how the effect correlates with product type. An experiment is designed and conducted to test the corresponding hypotheses. We find that reference options significantly affect participants' final decisions about innovative attributes. However, the effect is not significant for noninnovative attributes and products. Copyright © 2016 IEEE.