Final answer:
Customers hesitate in purchasing decisions due to imperfect information. Mail-order firms like L.L. Bean overcome this by offering money-back guarantees and maintaining a quality reputation. Customer flow assumptions in retail may not reflect real-time variability and group dynamics.
Step-by-step explanation:
Customers who take a long time to make a purchase decision and may return to a retailer several times before finalizing a purchase are often dealing with the challenge of imperfect information. When information about a product is incomplete or not clearly understood, it leads to hesitation and extended decision-making processes. This is particularly true for mail-order firms like L.L. Bean, which rely on sales made by mail, telephone, or online, where customers cannot directly interact with the product. These companies may counteract the issue of imperfect information by offering money-back guarantees and building a reputation for quality. This helps to bolster customer confidence and encourage purchases despite the inability to see and touch items before buying. Furthermore, the flow of customers can vary, and assumptions that they arrive individually, or that customer traffic is consistent throughout the day, may not be accurate.