Study of effects of AR on consumer behaviour in the purchase funnel

Abstract

Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive and immersive way for users to navigate their surroundings with the computer-generated perceptual information. From a marketing standpoint, it allows consumers to interact with the brand in a more enriching manner by transforming the physical environment through virtually enhanced add-ons. From our experimental research, we tried to analyze how AR effects purchase intention. For this we divided our subject group into two groups and exposed one to a situation without the option of using AR for virtual product trials and the other group to situation with the option of using AR for virtual product trials. We then proceeded to understand the change in buying behavior through purchase intention, the difference in trust, risk and purchase intention between the two groups. After establishing the relationship between different variables in control and test groups, through consumer behavior concepts we tried understanding the experimental results. We discovered that allowing consumers to try out a product virtually increases the purchase intention. This increase in purchase intention is due to higher perceived trust and reduced perceived risk. Therefore, we recommend that brands that have traditionally relied on offline product trials, and are facing issues of low trustworthiness and higher perceived risk while selling the same product online should focus on developing AR products.