A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

Satisficing 

behaviour

Consumers do not 

behave entirely rationally 

in product or supplier 

selection. They will 

compare alternatives, 

but then may make their 

choice given imperfect 

information.

Source: Security Exchange Commission filing 10‑K for Dell, 2007.

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Part 2  Strategy and applications

only 1.2 book sites, 1.3 CD sites and 1.8 travel sites during a typical active month in each 

category. Of course, these averages will reflect a range of behaviour.

A compromise approach used by many companies is to use differential pricing with lower 

prices or Internet offers for some of their products online. This has been the approach fol-

lowed by online electrical retailers such as Comet (

www.comet.co.uk

), travel companies 

such as Thomson (

www.thomson.co.uk

) and companies with e-savings products.

Pricing online has to take into account the concept of