Navigating the ‘messy middle’ of online consumer decision-making

Alex Brownsell

Research from Google and The Behavioural Architects decodes how decisions are made online.

The pivot to e-commerce will likely be remembered as the overriding business story of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumers are buying more online; businesses have upended operations to be able to fulfil products via home delivery. Yet little is known about the thought processes that influence purchase decisions in the online environment.

Google and The Behavioural Architects set out to find out more with a study exploring the ‘messy middle’ of digital purchase journeys. As a starting point, Google had spotted in its search data that consumers were less and less likely to search for terms such as ‘free’ and ‘cheap’,...

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