Consumer decision-making in the purchase of estate agency services

The paucity of research into the 'demand side' of services can be contrasted with the plethora of 'supply side' investigations. This paper reviews consumers' pre-purchase choice and decision-making in services, and summarises the findings of a survey of property vendors who have purchased the services of estate agents. The findings highlight the importance of non-rational decision-making in estate agency service purchase, and the key role played by personnel in shaping consumer behaviour while suggesting that price and physical appearance of the service provider are not major evaluative criteria. The paper concludes that existing theory on consumer behaviour for services is inadequate and calls for the imbalance of research into the 'demand side' to be addressed.