It’s completely logical to look at a site with a higher price first and then go back and click on the lowest priced one if it’s a trusted merchant. Different merchants offer different amounts of information.

For example I might find that one merchant I trust has the lowest price, but Newegg is on the list and they usually have good site-specific reviews as well as detailed specs so I might click on them first, return and click on the lowest priced one to actually purchase.

Until the customer is provided with all the information possible about the product right at their fingertips along with the price-comparisons, they’re likely to do a bit of browsing via the merchant links before choosing which to buy from.

Consider also that there are merchant preferences for various reasons. I, for example, like to try to buy from places that have reliable stock indications and a tendency for fast shipping. Also if I’m ordering a bunch of things at once, I’ll usually try to order as many of the items I can from one place even if they’re a little bit more expensive on some of those items. It would be really nice to be able to organize this sort of stuff on a price comparison shopping site but the guarantees on in stock status and such may cause problems.

Basically, there’s a plethora of possible reasons for the 20% statement making it rather trivial on it’s own. Was there more to that part or at least a broader scope of analysis there?

Ja

Thanks for the informative feedback Mike, it’s noted.