Collaborative online shopping with virtual reality: An explorative investigation using fNIRS-based hyperscanning

Abstract

This study explores consumers’ shopping satisfaction within an innovative shopping context—collaborative shopping with friends enabled by virtual reality (VR) technology. In the experiments, a series of scenarios was devised, and participants’ brain responses were measured using a relatively novel brain imaging technique, functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The experimental conditions included (1) shopping alone in a VR environment; (2) shopping alone without VR; (3) shopping collaboratively with a friend in a VR environment; and (4) shopping collaboratively with a friend without VR. The results reveal that collaborative shopping in a VR setting reduces selection conflict at the individual level. Participants in condition (3) exhibited significantly lower activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) compared to those in the other three conditions, suggesting reduced conflict when making choices among alternatives. Notably, activation in the left IFG was negatively correlated with consumers’ reported shopping satisfaction. At the group level, which examined dynamic information exchange between dyads in the collaborative VR condition, higher satisfaction was associated with stronger inter-brain neural alignment over the frontoparietal junction. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.