Consumer perceptions and purchase behavior toward imperfect fruits and vegetables in an immersive virtual reality grocery store

This study investigates the effects of fruits and vegetables (FaVs) abnormality on consumer perceptions and purchasing behavior. For the purposes of this study, a virtual grocery store was created with a fresh FaVs section, where 142 participants became immersed using an Oculus Rift DK2 Head-Mounted Display (HMD) software. Participants were presented either normal, slightly misshapen, moderately misshapen or severely misshapen FaVs. The study findings indicate that shoppers tend to purchase a similar number of FaVs whatever their level of deformity. However, perceptions of the appearance and quality of the FaVs depend on the degree of abnormality. Moderately misshapen FaVs are perceived as significantly better than those that are heavily misshapen but also slightly misshapen (except for the appearance of fruits).