Exploring purchase intention in Virtual Reality: evidence from a comparative experimental analysis

With the advent of Virtual Reality and the impact it will have on everyday life, the way we think about and experience shopping will be different. Consumers will interact in completely virtual worlds with virtual objects. The question is whether shoppers will evaluate products and their analytical attributes in the same way as in the real world, and what consequence this will have on their purchase intentions. To understand whether consumer response in Virtual Reality differs from physical reality when it comes to assessing a product, a mixed design laboratory experiment has been conducted, comparing the two conditions, namely virtual and physical. 139 participants were involved and, for the different packaged product alternatives proposed, their purchase intention was measured and compared. The results show that consumer behaviour in Virtual Reality is comparable to and consistent with the physical world. Virtual Reality thus appears to be a promising shopping environment, as well as an effective alternative for conducting studies involving consumers.