Customer Engagement in AR Mobile Apps: The Role of Psychological Factors and the Moderating Effect of Product Category

The growth of augmented reality, particularly its virtual try-on feature, has significantly enhanced customer engagement and experience in mobile applications. As AR adoption continues to rise, understanding its role in enhancing customer engagement and its underlying factors becomes crucial for providing actionable insights to the industry. This study investigates the impact of psychological factors, such as psychological ownership and decision comfort, driven by AR attributes, on customer engagement in AR mobile applications. It also explores the moderation effect of product categories (user body-superimposed and environment-superimposed products). The findings indicate that AR attributes significantly influence psychological ownership and decision comfort, leading to customer engagement. The multi-group analysis results show that perceived augmentation has a stronger effect on psychological ownership and decision comfort when customers try on body-superimposed products like eyewear or wristwatches, compared to environment-superimposed products like furniture.