TY - JOUR
T1 - Touching the untouchable: exploring multi-sensory augmented reality in the context of online retailing
AU - Heller, Jonas
AU - Chylinski , Mathew
AU - de Ruyter, Ko
AU - Mahr, Dominik
AU - Keeling, Debbie I.
PY - 2019/12/7
Y1 - 2019/12/7
N2 - Mental intangibility during product evaluation remains one of the greatest drawbacks for online purchasing. However, emerging multi-sensory Augmented Reality (m-AR) applications offer a potential solution for this online retailing problem. Drawing on active inference theory, this article proposes a conceptual framework to assess how sensory control and feedback modalities affect consumer value judgements by reducing mental intangibility. We show how touch control, compared to voice control, positively affects consumers’ willingness-to-pay. The underlying mechanism is a sequential process of reduced mental intangibility and increased feeling of decision comfort. In addition, we highlight a positive moderating effect of congruent auditory feedback on decision comfort. We also demonstrate a novel consumer boundary condition. Consumers high in assessment orientation experience a stronger reduction in mental intangibility. The results are consistently replicated across three experiments implying theoretical and managerial contributions for m-AR in the context of online retailing.
AB - Mental intangibility during product evaluation remains one of the greatest drawbacks for online purchasing. However, emerging multi-sensory Augmented Reality (m-AR) applications offer a potential solution for this online retailing problem. Drawing on active inference theory, this article proposes a conceptual framework to assess how sensory control and feedback modalities affect consumer value judgements by reducing mental intangibility. We show how touch control, compared to voice control, positively affects consumers’ willingness-to-pay. The underlying mechanism is a sequential process of reduced mental intangibility and increased feeling of decision comfort. In addition, we highlight a positive moderating effect of congruent auditory feedback on decision comfort. We also demonstrate a novel consumer boundary condition. Consumers high in assessment orientation experience a stronger reduction in mental intangibility. The results are consistently replicated across three experiments implying theoretical and managerial contributions for m-AR in the context of online retailing.
KW - 512 Business and Management
KW - multi-sensory augmented reality
KW - active inference
KW - mental intangibility
KW - decision comfort
KW - assessment orientation
U2 - 10.1016/j.jretai.2019.10.008
DO - 10.1016/j.jretai.2019.10.008
M3 - Article
SN - 0022-4359
VL - 95
SP - 219
EP - 234
JO - Journal of Retailing
JF - Journal of Retailing
IS - 4
ER -