Shopping in Reality or Virtuality? A Validation Study of Consumers’ Price Memory in a Virtual vs. Physical Supermarket

Abstract

This study validates a VR supermarket as a research tool by studying the influence of the food shopping setting on consumers’ price memory—an important antecedent for price comparisons in the purchase situation. In a quasi-experiment, two groups of consumers were given a shopping task in either a physical supermarket or a virtual reality supermarket setting. Upon task completion, participants’ explicit and implicit price memory was measured across three food product categories (pizza sauce, pasta, and dark chocolate). Results revealed no significant difference between the two settings, supporting the comparability between the VR shopping experience and the experience in the physical supermarket. The VR supermarket can therefore be a valid tool for studying consumer food choice behaviour in a shopping context. Further results show that explicit price memory is weaker compared to implicit price memory, that even prices are remembered better than odd prices, and that price memory follows the expected pattern in a VR supermarket as well. Finally, exploratory findings indicate that the feeling of physical presence and self-presence is relatively high for this particular VR supermarket, whereas social presence is weaker.