Influence of Augmented Reality Technology on Customer Experience in Online Shopping

Abstract

Augmented reality offers a novel approach to enhancing online retail engagement, and its application in online commerce is expanding rapidly. Despite this growth, its influence on key customer experience outcomes remains insufficiently understood. While prior research has, highlighted augmented reality’s potential to enhance engagement and personalization, limited empirical evidence explains how augmented reality affects customer satisfaction and trust. Drawing on flow theory, this study investigates how perceptions of unique augmented reality features, namely interactivity, vividness, and novelty, shape customer satisfaction and trust in online shopping through the mediating roles of flow experience and customer engagement, as well as the moderating role of perceived customer support. To test the proposed conceptual model, an online survey was conducted with 235 participants, and the data were analyzed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).The findings demonstrate that perceptions of augmented reality features significantly enhance the flow experience, which, in turn, fosters customer engagement and leads to higher levels of satisfaction and trust. However, the results reveal a counterintuitive moderating effect of perceived customer support, as higher levels of perceived customer support, weakens the positive relationship between flow experience and customer engagement. This finding challenges the common assumption that service support uniformly strengthens immersive technology experiences and highlights perceived customer support as a contextual boundary condition rather than a universally reinforcing factor.

This study advances theoretical understanding by integrating perceptions of augmented reality features, flow experience, customer engagement, and customer satisfaction and trust into a cohesive framework for online customer experience. Practically, the findings suggest that the effectiveness of augmented reality in online shopping depends not only on the novelty of technology but also on the underlying mechanisms to enhance the online shopping experience, leading to greater customer satisfaction and trust.