HEURISTICS AS A TOOL FOR RESEARCHING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS IN DIGITAL COMMERCE
Abstract
The article examines the essence and potential applications of heuristics as a tool for identifying and substantiating innovative solutions in digital commerce. The study aims to determine the relationship between consumers’ heuristic decision-making rules, choice architecture, and the directions of digital platform innovation. Its theoretical framework draws on behavioural economics, bounded rationality theory, and the concept of choice architecture. The research methodology combines comparative analysis, synthesis, systematisation, and the interpretation of corporate reporting indicators. The importance of heuristics for analysing product searches, recommendation systems, digital advertising, personalised offers, and payment methods is demonstrated. Digital platforms are shown to transform consumer behavioural signals into information resources for improving interfaces, payment services, logistics, and interactions with sellers. A platform monetisation coefficient and a heuristic–innovation profile of an enterprise are proposed to compare revenue-generation models and the application of behavioural mechanisms. The empirical basis of the study comprises publicly available corporate data from Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Etsy, Alibaba, and Mercado Libre. Gross merchandise value (GMV), revenue, advertising income, the number of active buyers, subscriptions, and digital services are compared. The findings indicate that innovations in digital commerce are directly associated with the formation of consumer choice architecture. Social proof, the anchoring effect, information availability, scarcity, and personal relevance exert the most significant influence. Attention is also given to distinguishing beneficial consumer nudges from manipulative digital interface design. The practical value of the findings lies in their potential application to evaluating and improving innovative solutions developed by digital commerce platforms. Further research should assess the effects of individual heuristic stimuli using transaction-level, user-session, and shopping-cart data.
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