Determination of consumer context in an online transaction process for a high risk purchase

This paper showcases/discusses a method of analyzing consumer website behavior that enables real-time purchase context identification. Such analysis will enable online vendors to serve content that is relevant to the consumer’s needs, addressing the apparent utility deficit that websites have for complex product transactions. The use of communication theory is a key component of a value co-creation process that leverages the data derived from website interactivity by analyzing the meaning of consumer activity on a website. Such an approach offers insights into the effect of information accessed by consumers in real time, enabling a responsive system for serving information in real time. In particular it offers the ability to deal with the complexity of consumer needs at the point of sale by avoiding unworkable traditional factor based modeling practices. In addition to communication theory, this approach requires a detailed classification of website content and databases connecting to primary research into consumer information utility.