What Web Search Behaviors Lead to Online Purchase Satisfaction?

This study investigates the relationship between web information-seeking behavior and post-purchase satisfaction. We examine web search logs as a record of web information-seeking behaviors and product ratings in an e-commerce (EC) site as self-rated post-purchase satisfaction. Our analysis revealed that web search behaviors are different for satisfied and dissatisfied customers, and even for different types of customers and products. In particular, we found that (1) within a week prior to the purchase, satisfied users more frequently searched for a wider range of product-related information than dissatisfied users. (2) satisfied users searched with more specific queries than dissatisfied users prior to the purchase, especially when they are relatively familiar with web search and purchasing a relatively expensive product. (3) customers looking for opinions of others are more likely to be satisfied with their purchase. Furthermore, we also addressed the problem of predicting customers' post-purchase satisfaction based on their web search behaviors before and after the purchase. This attempt demonstrated that customers are likely to have different levels of post-purchase satisfaction if they conducted different types of web search.