Research on consumers' cross-site transfer behavior based on complexnetwork theory

Consumers' online information seeking process consists of two alternatelyjoining behaviors: intra-site visit and cross-site transfer. Current studiesmainly focused on the intra-site visit behavior while cross-site transferbehavior is little concerned. In this paper consumers' cross-site transferbehavior with specific information seeking task is studied for the first time,we collected client-side logs during consumers' online information seekingprocess under experimental circumstances, represented the logs as a cross-sitetransfer network and analyzed the cross-site transfer behavior based on complexnetwork theory. Main conclusions include: the cross-site transfer network hassome topological characteristics different from common networks; a largeproportion of transfer behaviors are carried out between different websitecategories; the proportion of transfers within the same website category isrelatively low as a whole, but transfers within different website categories arevery different; the transfers between websites have high degree of reciprocity.The conclusions may help websites establish strategy alliance pertinently.ICIC International