Consumer Purchase Timing Decisions Under Uncertainty

消费者做出购买时机决定的过程对于理解广泛的经济行为至关重要。尽管这个过程可能很复杂，但其核心是一个相当直接的困境；如何平衡即时消费的回报和延迟后悔的风险。例如，在决定何时购买一件重要的耐用品时，需要一个人权衡眼前享受的诱惑与以后可能会有更有价值的产品的恐惧。同样，消费者购买折扣商品的程度取决于支付低于正常价格的奖励如何与表面上的“折扣”相平衡，事实上，这是一个相当常规的折扣。本研究将探讨在不确定的动态环境下，消费者进行序贯购买时机与数量决策的过程。本研究将透过互动电脑实验，探讨消费者在时间价格与产品品质变化的模式与可预测性、未来产品需求的不确定性、决策的风险与复杂性，以及序贯资讯收集的成本等因素下，形成理性序贯购买策略的能力。研究应确定一系列的顺序决策启发式，这将使目前的不确定性下决策的正式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.