Search engines changing shopping patterns
Internet search engines that find online merchandise are changing shopping patterns by making niche products more popular, according to new research from the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Digital Business.
"As search costs keep getting lower, relatively obscure types of products are becoming a bigger share of overall sales," Erik Brynjolfsson, the center's director and a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, said in a statement. "And as technology further lowers search costs to find obscure items, it creates even more incentives to create such niche products in the first place."
One company that Brynjolfsson studied was a retailer that sells products both online and through a catalog. Catalog sales tended to focus on best sellers and items that were prominently displayed in spaces such as the catalog's back page. "Obscure items" accounted for 20 percent of catalog sales, but online they represented 30 percent of sales, he said.
Brynjolfsson said he did not have the retailer's permission to disclose its identity.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)
