Behavioural Economics and Digital Consumer Decision-Making: A Cross-Disciplinary Look at How People Adopt New Technologies

Abstract

The way consumers make, evaluate, and repeat choices has changed a lot because of digital technologies. When people shop online, they see more than just the features and prices of products. They also see automated suggestions, interface designs, personalised offers, social proof tools, platform nudges, default settings, and too much information. Because of these factors, behavioural economics is a very useful way to understand how people use and adopt technology. This article looks at how digital consumers make decisions from different fields of study by combining research in consumer psychology, technology adoption theory, behavioural economics, and digital commerce. It makes the case that rational-choice assumptions or utility-maximizing models alone can't fully explain why people adopt new technologies in digital markets. Instead, limited reasoning, shortcuts, preferences, feelings, trust, risk awareness, technology readiness, and socially mediated learning all play a role in how people adopt new technologies. This article talks about how the ideas behind consumer technology adoption research have changed over time. It looks at the role of major frameworks like the Technology Acceptance Model, diffusion-based perspectives, and hybrid consumer-behavior approaches. It also looks at how digital environments can make behavioural biases stronger or change them. It also talks about how personalisation, social impact, trust, and interface design are playing a bigger part in how people choose what to buy online. The conclusion of the article is that digital consumer decision-making is a situation-dependent process that is shaped by both psychological architecture and technological design. It also says that responsible innovation means paying attention to more than just how quickly new technologies are adopted. It also means paying attention to consumer welfare, autonomy, and openness.