Factors of comparison between e-book and print book for purchase －Relationship between consumer’s preferences and changes in presented information for books－

Abstract

This research aims at investigating how types of books and reading purpose affect consumer’s preferences. We conduct an online questionnaire that shows the same title of books in print-book and e-book for participants, and changes factors of comparison, such as “the types of book”, “with or without afterword”, “with or without cut”, and “functions of e-book”. From the results, more participants prefer a print-book in novel tasks than an e-book, while more participants choose an e-book in how-to book tasks than a print-book. This results indicate that different types of books and reading purpose may affect consumer’s preferences, as the importance of factors of comparison changes when they compare different types of books and their reading purpose．