Rock, Rufus;
O’Reilly, Tim;
Strauss, Ilan;
Mazzucato, Mariana;
(2023)
Behind the Clicks: Can Amazon allocate user attention as it pleases?
(Working Paper Series
2023-11).
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose: London, UK.
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Abstract
We investigate Amazon’s power to extract economic rents through the algorithmic arrangement of search results. We analyze 2023 Amazon Marketplace search result data, focusing on product features and the top-3 most clicked products, to estimate what drives user clicks. Our econometric results show that increased visual prominence and positioning (“attention share”) correlates strongly with more clicks, even when products have a higher price or worse ratings. Among the top five search results, where typically four are advertisements, we find that neither decreased relevancy nor increased price significantly sways user decisions. This suggests that users tend to satisfice, accepting the products displayed prominently by Amazon’s algorithms, rather than exhaustively searching for optimal choices. Advertising on Amazon exploits this behavioural dynamic by transforming product prominence into a mechanism for rent-extraction.
| Type: | Working / discussion paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | Behind the Clicks: Can Amazon allocate user attention as it pleases? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/wp20... |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Inst for Innovation and Public Purpose |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10196133 |
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