Observational learning in the product configuration process: An empirical study

Product configurators have been acknowledged as an important enabling toolkit to realise mass customisation. Currently, some on-line configurators provide extra information on attribute variants to improve the information available to customers, such as popularity or bestseller ratings. This information is derived from the purchase behaviours of other customers. However, it is not clear how such information affects consumer decision making. Drawing on the notion of observational learning, it could be posited that customers tend to follow the choices made by others, particularly when they lack adequate prior knowledge about products. However, one of the advantages of customisation is that it enables customers to harness and reveal their own identities by configuring and purchasing a bespoke unique product that is tailored to their own desires. Thus, customers may not be willing to select the popular variants during configuration process. To solve this paradox, we empirically find that observational learning is significant in the product configuration process. Customers' abilities and motivations to process information mediate this observational learning effect. Copyright © 2018 IEEE.