On Motivating Operations at the Point of Online Purchase Setting

Consumer behavior analysis can be applied over a wide range of economic topics in which the main focus is the contingencies that influence the behavior of the economic agent. This paper provides an overview on the work that has been done on the impact from motivating operations at the point of online purchase situation. Motivating operations, a behavior analytic formulation of motivation is defined as any environmental event that (a) establishes (or abolishes) the reinforcing or punishing effect of another event and (b) evokes (or abates) behavior related to that event. Our conclusion is that the concept of motivating operations has two advantages. First, it provides understanding about the impact from observable environmental stimuli to consumers’ purchases in an online situation. Second, the concept is designed specifically to facilitate intervention as it is formulated in terms of behavior-environmental relations that can be manipulated directly. Accordingly, findings derived using the concept of motivating operations can be more immediately applied to the design of the company’s Web site.