Using a Virtual Store As a Research Tool to Investigate Consumer In-store Behavior

Area of Science:

• Consumer Behavior Research
• Virtual Reality Applications
• Experimental Design

Background:

• Traditional methods for studying in-store consumer behavior (surveys, lab settings) lack external validity due to unrealistic environments.
• Replicating realistic choice environments in physical stores for experiments is costly and complex.
• Virtual reality (VR) presents a solution for simulating 3D virtual store environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a protocol for utilizing a desktop virtual store to investigate in-store consumer behavior.
• To detail the steps for building, managing data, running, and exporting data from a virtual store experiment.
• To demonstrate the utility of virtual stores for studying consumer responses to various factors.

Main Methods:

• Development of a desktop virtual store using virtual reality techniques.
• Implementation of a data management program for experiment control and data collection.
• Protocol for building the virtual store, preparing data management, running experiments, and organizing data.
• Participants navigate, interact with products, and make selections within the virtual environment.

Main Results:

• The virtual store successfully simulates realistic shopping scenarios, allowing interaction with products and environments.
• Collection of detailed consumer behavior data, including shopping time, movement, and product interaction metrics.
• An example experiment demonstrated that shelf length and orientation significantly influence shopping and movement behaviors.

Conclusions:

• Desktop virtual stores provide a flexible, cost-efficient, and realistic platform for studying in-store consumer behavior.
• This methodology overcomes the limitations of traditional research settings and facilitates the examination of hard-to-manipulate variables.
• Virtual stores are particularly valuable for research involving novel products, complex store layouts, or routine shopping behaviors.