Consumer Purchase Timing Decisions Under Uncertainty

消费者做出购买时机决定的过程是 这对理解广泛的经济行为至关重要。 虽然 这一过程可能往往是复杂的，其中心是一个相当 直接的困境;如何平衡即时的回报 有延迟后悔的风险。 决定何时 例如，购买一个主要的耐用品，需要一个人权衡 立即享受，而不是担心更好的产品价值可能 稍后可用。 同样，消费者愿意在多大程度上 购买打折的杂货取决于奖励 与支付低于正常价格相关的费用与 表面上的“折扣”实际上是 一个比较常规的。 这项研究将探讨消费者的过程， 不确定动态环境下的序贯采购时间与数量决策 环境. 通过使用交互式计算机实验， 研究将探索消费者形成理性的能力， 在模式变化下的连续购买策略， 时间价格和产品质量变化的可预测性， 未来产品需求的不确定性， 决策，以及顺序信息收集的成本。 的 研究应确定一套顺序决策算法， 将允许当前正式的 不确定性下的决策行为理论 扩展到时间域。

The process by which consumers make purchase timing decisions is central to understanding a wide range of economic behaviors. Although this process may often be complex, at its center is a rather straightforward dilemma; how to balance the rewards of immediate consumption with the risks of delayed regret. The decision of when to buy a major durable, for example, requires one to weigh the lure of immediate enjoyment against the fear that a better product value may become available later. Likewise, the extent to which a consumer will stock up on a discounted grocery item depends on how the rewards associated with paying the lower-than-normal price are balanced against the perceived likelihood that the apparent "discount" is, in fact, a rather routine one. This research will explore the process by which consumers make sequential purchase timing and quantity decisions in uncertain dynamic environments. Through the use of interactive computer experiments, the research will explore the ability of consumers to form rationale sequential buying strategies under variations in the pattern and predictability of temporal price and product quality changes, uncertainty of future product demand, the risk and complexity of decisions, and the cost of sequential information gathering. The research should identify sets of sequential decision heuristics which will allow current formal behavioral theories of decision making under uncertainty to be extended to temporal domains.