In the podcast, he also shares some strategies we can use to overcome the influence of urgency and regret in our shopping behavior.
Timm Opitz is Junior Research Fellow and doctoral student in the economics department Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research of the Institute. His research focuses on entrepreneurship, behavioral market design, and developmental psychology.
Perceived urgency and regret are common in many sequential search processes. Sellers often pressure buyers in search of the best offer, both time-wise and in terms of potential regret of forgoing unique purchasing opportunities. Theoretically, these strategies result in anticipated and experienced regret, which systematically affect search behavior and thereby distort optimal search. In addition, urgency may alter decision-making processes and thereby the salience of regret.
To understand the empirical relevance of these aspects, Timm Opitz and his coauthors study the causal effects of regret, urgency, and their interaction on search behavior in an experiment. Empirically, they find that anticipated regret does not affect search behavior either with or without time pressure, while experienced regret leads to systematic adjustments in search length. Urgency reduces decision times and perceived decision quality, but does not generally alter search length. Only very inexperienced customers buy earlier when pressured. Thus, consumer protection measures against pressure selling tactics can help inexperienced consumers in particular.
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Click here to access the full publication:
Klimm, Felix; Kocher, Martin G.; Opitz, Timm; Schudy, Simeon A. (2023).
Time Pressure and Regret in Sequential Search
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 206, 406-424