Haas School of Business Faculty Member & SysIQ Launch Study to Understand
Online Purchasing Behavior
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=60118
SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 11/18/2003 -- SysIQT
http://www.sysiq.com/, a leading provider of managed eBusiness services for
retailers and mail order catalogers, and Miguel Villas-Boas, professor of
business administration at the Haas School of Business at the University of
California Berkeley, today launched the Internet Consumer Purchase Behavior
Study (ICPBS) to measure how various Web store attributes impact the
purchasing behavior of consumers. SysIQ has built and manages the technology
infrastructure and operations of a real Web store where consumers will
purchase office supplies and electronic goods, and a group of PhD and MBA
students led by Miguel Villas-Boas will study how various features such as
site design, product presentation, and price promotion impact purchasing
behavior. The ICPBS is the first academic study that analyzes the online
behaviors displayed by real consumers that are making real purchases.
"The possibility of collecting data from a new Internet store that is
created solely for research purposes is a unique opportunity to understand
the purchasing behavior of actual consumers," said Miguel Villas-Boas,
professor of business administration at the Haas School of Business. "It
enables the researchers to look at the behavior of consumers in a situation
where the market factors are exogenously controlled, and not decided
endogenously by firms. This is especially reinforced by the fact that the
researchers have complete control over all the potential decisions in the
store."
SysIQ fully supports the operations of the ICPBS Web store including
storefront design; order & transaction processing; integration to a
distribution and fulfillment center; site usage and reporting; and multiple
site versioning. The online research store is specifically structured to run
multiple versions of the site concurrently and simultaneously to test the
hypothesized relationship between a particular Web store attribute, such as
product presentation, and the resulting consumer behavior. SysIQ supports
the privacy rights of online consumers, and all analysis of consumer
behavior in the ICPBS study is anonymous. The study will begin in November,
and SysIQ will publish the results on a regular basis. Direct marketers who
wish to learn more about the current testing or want to suggest areas of the
study that are of particular interest to them can visit
http://www.sysiq.com/xper_xper.htm .
"U.C. Berkeley is an internationally recognized leader in academic research,
and we are pleased to be working with one of their esteemed faculty members
on a study that will help retailers and catalogers impact customer behaviors
and grow their online businesses," said Igor Gorin, co-founder and CEO of
SysIQ. "This one-of-a-kind study tests real consumers making real purchases,
and we are proud to be supporting the infrastructure that is vital to the
success of this study. Our ability to accommodate the rigorous requirements
of the research team in order to conduct controlled experiments and limit
the interference factors is critical to producing granular and relevant data
for analysis. We look forward to sharing the analysis with retailers and
catalogers who stand to gain from this research."
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Cybercollegially,
Charles Wankel
Mg-Ed-Dv List Director