Analysing Effects of Information Overload on Decision Quality in an Online Environment

As internet is empowering customers with rich information about product attributes, experiences of others, dot-com retailers and manufacturers are also struggling to provide ever-increasing amount of product information to customers. Companies often believe that their long-term profitability may be determined by how much their product information is presented to and processed by the consumers.But people shopping online often face difficulty in processing large combinations of product attributes within a limited cognitive capacity. This increase in amount of information cannot facilitate decision making and the decision maker experiences ‘Information overload’ which may result in dysfunctional consequences such as cognitive fatigue and confusion which in turn effect decision quality. Searching for product information on the Internet is the most important predictor of online buying behavior. Differences in customers search procedure for search and experience products online may result in differences in their online shopping behavior. These differences have important implications on marketing practices. The present research focuses on explaining theeffects of ‘information overload’ on the choice and purchase decisions for different search and experience product online. The findings of research has implications for information providers, retailers and researchers interested in improving quality of human decision making.