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Stuck in the Adoption Funnel: The Effect of Delays in the Adoption Process on Ultimate Adoption

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Abstract

Online applications and services automate communications and transactions between firms and consumers, promising large efficiency gains. However, consumers have been slow to use these online technologies intensively, despite widespread adoption of the internet. Customers frequently undergo a staggered adoption process that may involve sign-up, experimentation, trial, and substantial usage until they fully embrace internet services. We ask whether delays in moving through the initial stages of this adoption process contribute to consumers ultimately not using the service intensively. Such behavior would be consistent with laboratory findings on consumer memory. We explore this question using data from a German retail bank where only 24% of the customers who sign up for the bank's online banking service use it substantially. We use exogenous variation in delays in the adoption process, caused by vacations and public holidays in different German states, to identify this effect. We find that delays in the early stages of adoption significantly reduce a customer's probability of moving to substantial usage: A 10-day delay of a customer's first online login reduces the likelihood that she will ever use the technology substantially, by 33%. This effect is more severe for demographic groups with less online experience.

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  • Anja Lambrecht & Katja Seim & Catherine Tucker, 2007. "Stuck in the Adoption Funnel: The Effect of Delays in the Adoption Process on Ultimate Adoption," Working Papers 07-40, NET Institute, revised Oct 2007.
    • Handle: RePEc:net:wpaper:0740
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    Cited by:

    1. Jason Allen & Robert Clark & Jean-François Houde, 2008. "Market Structure and the Diffusion of E-Commerce: Evidence from the Retail Banking Industry," Staff Working Papers 08-32, Bank of Canada.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    patents; technology adoption; adoption process; online services; banking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M3 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising
    • M30 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - General
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

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