ABSTRACT:
In recent years, few questions have been of greater interest to consumer researchers, as well as to marketers of consumer products, than the viability of the internet as a platform for commercial transactions. At the heart of this debate is the issue of whether or not the internet provides anything that is substantially new or different from traditional business-to-consumer (B2C)channels. We believe that, indeed, the internet does provide some unique opportunities to marketers in their quest to better understand and ultimately influence their target customers. In particular, retailers on the internet have an unprecedented opportunity to personalize the shopping experience and control the shopping environment. In this chapter we will examine three specific psychological mechanisms that can play a central role in influencing the interaction between shoppers and recommendation agents in electronic marketplaces.
