Cognitive load during planned and unplanned virtual shopping: Evidence from a neurophysiological perspective

Rapid adoption of virtual-reality-assisted retail applications is inadvertently reshaping consumer buying patterns,
making it crucial for businesses to enhance their shopping experience. This new scenario challenges
marketers with unique hurdles in both the commercialization of products and in managing information cues
derived via VR retailing. Therefore, this study examined consumers’ impulsive behavior and unplanned purchases
in a virtual retail store, using self-reports and electroencephalography. Borrowing assorted perspectives
from retailing, virtual reality, and neuromarketing literature, we extended the stimulus-organism-response
framework to evaluate how unplanned behavior evolves through conscious and unconscious measures. We
found that consumers’ impulsiveness was significantly associated with their unplanned expenditure and the
number of unplanned purchases. Using mediation analysis, we observed that flow experience during shopping
partially mediated the relationship between the sense of presence and the desire to stay longer in a virtual
shopping store. Desire to stay in the virtual store positively influenced store satisfaction, basket-size deviation,
and budget deviation. Additionally, cognitive workload obtained via electroencephalogram revealed significant
differences during both planned and unplanned purchases. These findings provide fresh opportunities for retailers
to leverage the disruptive potential of immersive and interactive virtual technology to transform consumer
shopping experiences.