Abstract:

The Boston Consulting Group recently conducted various research projects to quantify the value of the internet to consumers generally and for some specific activities. We anchored these studies on the concept of Consumer Surplus, developing a series of experiments to estimate value for internet activities. Creative applications of choice based research techniques were leveraged to evaluate specific behaviors as a way to estimate how much value consumers place on different web functionalities, and ultimately to model the overall value and consumer surplus created for consumers by the internet. Beyond this quantification of the value of the overall consumer surplus, the research conducted in 14 countries also provided new knowledge and insights on today's connected consumers across countries, segments and notably generations.