Towards Intelligent Shopping Assistant: Can LLM Chatbot Empower Consumer Decision Making?

35 Pages Posted: 7 Feb 2025

See all articles by Song Lin

Song Lin

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) - Department of Marketing; Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST); Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Zijun (June) Shi

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST)

Xinyi Sun

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST)

Date Written: January 09, 2025

Abstract

To explore the potential of Generative AI to enhance consumer decision making in E-commerce, we build an online shopping platform where consumers can conduct product searches and make purchase decisions, and design a chatbot assistant, powered by Large Language Models (LLM), that can help them shop on the platform. We conduct incentive-aligned experiments to evaluate the impacts of the AI chatbot on consumer shopping behaviors. Contrary to our expectation that the chatbot assistant can help consumers process information more efficiently and thus expedite the shopping process, we find that it actually increases consumers' shopping time. We further explore the underlying mechanism and find that the chatbot can encourage consumers to search more intensively (i.e., within-product inspection) and search with deeper concentration, while also marginally prompting them to search more extensively (i.e., cross-product search). Furthermore, the chatbot can help consumers reduce information overload, improve their shopping experience, and increase their purchase likelihood.

Keywords: Generative AI, LLM, chatbot, consumer search, information overload

Suggested Citation

Lin, Song and Shi, Zijun (June) and Sun, Xinyi, Towards Intelligent Shopping Assistant: Can LLM Chatbot Empower Consumer Decision Making? (January 09, 2025). HKUST Business School Research Paper No. 2025-196, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5088975 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5088975

Song Lin

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) - Department of Marketing ( email )

LSK 4005, HKUST Business School
Clear Water Bay
Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China na
Hong Kong
Clear Water Bay (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.bm.ust.hk/mark/staff/song_lin.html

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) ( email )

Clearwater Bay
Kowloon, 999999
Hong Kong

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology ( email )

Clearwater Bay
Kowloon, 999999
Hong Kong

Zijun (June) Shi

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) ( email )

Clearwater Bay
Kowloon, 999999
Hong Kong

Xinyi Sun (Contact Author)

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) ( email )

Clearwater Bay
Kowloon, 999999
Hong Kong
63395883 (Phone)

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