Product recommendation agents and customers’ search experience

All the constructs were measured using previous scales with well-established validity and reliability. A seven-point Likert scale was used for all the items. Besides the variables of interest to this study, the survey instrument measured control variables such as the respondents' demographic profile (age, gender, education, and employment), online behaviour such as duration of browsing and number of purchases made during a month. Particularly the duration of browsing and the number of purchases per month were measured to rule out social bias. People who browsed for less than 2 hours and made one or fewer purchases were intended to be dropped from the analysis. However, the data did not contain people with the above conditions. Hence, a total of 252 observations were considered for analysis.