How virtual reality affects consumer choice

Martin Meißner, Jella Pfeiffer, Christian Peukert, Holger Dietrich and Thies Pfeiffer

Journal of Business Research, 2020, vol. 117, issue C, 219-231

Abstract: With high-immersive virtual reality (VR) systems approaching mass markets, companies are seeking to better understand how consumers behave when shopping in VR. A key feature of high-immersive VR environments is that they can create a strong illusion of reality to the senses, which could substantially change consumer choice behavior compared to online shopping. We compare consumer choice from virtual shelves in two environments: (i) a high-immersive VR environment using a head-mounted display and hand-held controllers with (ii) a low-immersive environment showing products as rotatable 3-D models on a desktop computer screen. We use an incentive-aligned choice experiment to investigate how immersion affects consumer choice. Our investigation comprises three key choice characteristics: variety-seeking, price-sensitivity, and satisfaction with the choice made. The empirical results provide evidence that consumers in high-immersive VR choose a larger variety of products and are less price-sensitive. Choice satisfaction, however, did not increase in high-immersive VR.

Keywords: Virtual reality; Variety-seeking; Price-sensitivity; Satisfaction; Conjoint analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:117:y:2020:i:c:p:219-231

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.06.004

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