Consumers’ Perceived Risk in Online Purchasing: A Comparison Concerning 2d Product Visualization and Augmented Reality Applications (3d Product Visualization)

Consumers face a certain level of risk during online purchasing as any given purchase situation. During online purchases consumers’ information collection and processing activities directly affects their risk perception and thus purchasing decisions. One major development in online retailing today is the use of new technologies such as augmented reality during the collection of product information. The benefits offered by these technologies facilitate consumers' information gathering processes and offer a certain level of product testing prior to a purchase. When taken into consideration these technologies are expected to create differences in the risk perception of consumers. The main purpose of this study is to define the differences of perceived risk in the context of different product visualization technologies. A single-factor (2-D and 3-D product visualization) experiment was used to identify the differences between the risk perception of consumers. Students of a Istanbul University were used as subjects. As the product line used were accessories all of the subjects were female. To classify possible risk dimensions and to define the differences between two purchasing situations the data was analyzed with Partial Least Squares method. The findings suggest that product visualization technologies create a significant difference in consumers’ risk perception