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It is the purpose of the research team to study the effect on consumer spending behaviour for a single business entity in an online commerce environment (otherwise known as ebay, and henforce known as Ecommerce Environment A, or EEA) wherein money is exchanged for goods (in a promissary fashion due to the advent of EEA's Managed Payments system), and said goods are subsequently supplied to the consumer via shipping services, such as those provided by Australia Post, as well as any consequences of increased costs in providing the aforementioned shipping service on a per-order basis, and thus determine if the initial proposed hypthesis is correct - that being consumers will decline to purchase products if:
- the default shipping charge is increased to accommodate tracking services where previously it was offered on an optional basis
- the shipping costs outweigh the perceived or advertised value of the item
During the testing period, we have determined it is permissible to introduce isolated variables in order to observe any potential changes in consumer behaviour that can be correlated to said variables, with a view to increase the instances and / or value of consumer spend in comparison to the initial reduction of said behaviors
To contrast our observations and findings within EEA, we will simultaneously be observing consumer behaviours in two similar ecommerce environments, which operate under similar conditions as to be comparable with EEA prior to the introduction of increased shipping costs.
Data will be collected and related in a most anecdotal fashion on the social interaction pages provided to the members of EEA, where they may be perused and assessed by said members for the purposes of general interest, potential assistance, or object of jest.
The qualifications of the datastician appointed to head these research activities are provided in the attached document file
