Online purchases are increasingly becoming a significant portion of total assets in most product categories.
We use a three-stage model to study (i) the choice of the first website visited, (ii) the duration of browsing on travel websites before making a purchase, (iii) the choice of the website where consumers will make the purchase, and how a later stage choice is affected by decisions in previous stages.
A significant impact of the choice of the first site visited and browsing duration on the intention of the purchase site indicates the importance of modeling these decisions simultaneously.
Our results can help managers identify the significant determinants of multi-category purchase and provide insights into cross-promoting and upselling other products to consumers who visit their website.