IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/v118y2010i2p274-299.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Order in Product Customization Decisions: Evidence from Field Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Levav
  • Mark Heitmann
  • Andreas Herrmann
  • Sheena S. Iyengar

Abstract

Differentiated product models are predicated on the belief that a product's utility can be derived from the summation of utilities for its individual attributes. In one framed field experiment and two natural field experiments, we test this assumption by experimentally manipulating the order of attribute presentation in the product customization process of custom-made suits and automobiles. We find that order affects the design of a suit that people configure and the design and price of a car that people purchase by influencing the likelihood that they will accept the default option suggested by the firm. (c) 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Levav & Mark Heitmann & Andreas Herrmann & Sheena S. Iyengar, 2010. "Order in Product Customization Decisions: Evidence from Field Experiments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(2), pages 274-299, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:118:y:2010:i:2:p:274-299
    DOI: 10.1086/652463
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/652463
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/652463?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abadie, Alberto & Gay, Sebastien, 2006. "The impact of presumed consent legislation on cadaveric organ donation: A cross-country study," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 599-620, July.
    2. Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson & Guillermo Moloche & Stephen Weinberg, 2006. "Costly Information Acquisition: Experimental Analysis of a Boundedly Rational Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1043-1068, September.
    3. Wernerfelt, Birger, 1995. "A Rational Reconstruction of the Compromise Effect: Using Market Data to Infer Utilities," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(4), pages 627-633, March.
    4. Payne, John W & Schkade, David A. & Desvousges, William H. & Aultman, Chris, 2000. "Valuation of Multiple Environmental Programs," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 95-115, July.
    5. Glenn W. Harrison & John A. List, 2004. "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(4), pages 1009-1055, December.
    6. Sunil Gupta & Valarie Zeithaml, 2006. "Customer Metrics and Their Impact on Financial Performance," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 718-739, 11-12.
    7. Epple, Dennis, 1987. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Estimating Demand and Supply Functions for Differentiated Products," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 59-80, February.
    8. Patrick Bajari & C. Lanier Benkard, 2005. "Demand Estimation with Heterogeneous Consumers and Unobserved Product Characteristics: A Hedonic Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(6), pages 1239-1276, December.
    9. Brigitte C. Madrian & Dennis F. Shea, 2001. "The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(4), pages 1149-1187.
    10. Herbert A. Simon, 1955. "A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 69(1), pages 99-118.
    11. Ortoleva, Pietro, 2013. "The price of flexibility: Towards a theory of Thinking Aversion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(3), pages 903-934.
    12. Dan Ariely & George Loewenstein & Drazen Prelec, 2003. ""Coherent Arbitrariness": Stable Demand Curves Without Stable Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 73-106.
    13. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    14. Kelvin J. Lancaster, 1966. "A New Approach to Consumer Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(2), pages 132-132.
    15. Emir Kamenica, 2008. "Contextual Inference in Markets: On the Informational Content of Product Lines," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2127-2149, December.
    16. Berry, Steven & Levinsohn, James & Pakes, Ariel, 1995. "Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(4), pages 841-890, July.
    17. Steven Berry & Ariel Pakes, 2007. "The Pure Characteristics Demand Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 48(4), pages 1193-1225, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nicolai V. Kuminoff & V. Kerry Smith & Christopher Timmins, 2010. "The New Economics of Equilibrium Sorting and its Transformational Role for Policy Evaluation," NBER Working Papers 16349, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    3. Kuminoff, Nicolai V., 2009. "Decomposing the structural identification of non-market values," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 123-139, March.
    4. Patrick Bayer & Fernando Ferreira & Robert McMillan, 2007. "A Unified Framework for Measuring Preferences for Schools and Neighborhoods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 588-638, August.
    5. Wong, Maisy, 2010. "The Relationship between Marginal Willingness-to-Pay in the Hedonic and Discrete Choice Models," MPRA Paper 51218, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Ge, Suqin & Macieira, João, 2020. "Unobserved Worker Quality and Inter-Industry Wage Differentials," GLO Discussion Paper Series 491, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Ko, Kate, 2009. "Home Prices and Urban Corridors," 50th Annual Transportation Research Forum, Portland, Oregon, March 16-18, 2009 207607, Transportation Research Forum.
    8. Lars Nesheim, 2006. "Hedonic price functions," CeMMAP working papers CWP18/06, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    9. Victor Ginsburgh & Jianping Mei & Michael Moses, 2006. "On the computation of art indices in art," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7290, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    10. Rebecca Diamond & Tim McQuade, 2019. "Who Wants Affordable Housing in Their Backyard? An Equilibrium Analysis of Low-Income Property Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(3), pages 1063-1117.
    11. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899.
    12. Bishop, Kelly C. & Timmins, Christopher, 2019. "Estimating the marginal willingness to pay function without instrumental variables," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 66-83.
    13. James J. Heckman & Rosa L. Matzkin & Lars Nesheim, 2010. "Nonparametric Identification and Estimation of Nonadditive Hedonic Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(5), pages 1569-1591, September.
    14. C. Lanier Benkard & Patrick Bajari, 2004. "Demand Estimation with Heterogeneous Consumers and Unobserved Product Characteristics: A Hedonic Approach," NBER Working Papers 10278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Christopher R. Gustafson & Travis J. Lybbert & Daniel A. Sumner, 2016. "Consumer sorting and hedonic valuation of wine attributes: exploiting data from a field experiment," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 47(1), pages 91-103, January.
    16. Fluvià, Modest & Rigall-I-Torrent, Ricard & Espinet, Josep Maria & Garriga, Anna & Saló, Albert, 2011. "Precios implícitos de los atributos de los productos turísticos: ¿Qué esconde el efecto de la localización?/Implicit Prices of the Attributes of Tourism Products: What is Hidden Behind Location?," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 29, pages 781-802, Diciembre.
    17. Mathilde Poulhes, 2017. "From Latin Quarter to Montmartre Investigating Parisian Real-Estate Prices," Working Papers 2017-13, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    18. Ralph Siebert, 2015. "The Impact of Foreclosure on Housing Prices," CESifo Working Paper Series 5196, CESifo.
    19. Metcalfe, Robert & Dolan, Paul, 2012. "Behavioural economics and its implications for transport," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 503-511.
    20. Wong, Maisy, 2018. "A tractable approach to compare the hedonic and discrete choice frameworks," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 135-141.

    More about this item

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Order in Product Customization Decisions: Evidence from Field Experiments (JPE 2010) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:118:y:2010:i:2:p:274-299. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.