Who Owns the Color? Linking Color Cues and Sustainability Beliefs to Consumer Choices in Virtual Reality Retail

Color functions as a salient cue in consumer perception, influencing judgments of healthiness and sustainability through both cognitive and affective mechanisms. Prior research has focused primarily on packaging color, leaving the potential role of environmental sources such as shelf lighting and ambient lighting unexplored. The present study investigated whether the modality of color presentation (packaging, shelf lighting, or ambient lighting) affects purchase intention in a virtual supermarket and examined the relationship between intuitive color–attribute associations (i.e. green, blue, red and white), sustainability consciousness, and behavioral choice. Sixty-three participants interacted with products in an immersive VR environment, selecting items with systematically manipulated color cues and providing sustainability and healthiness ratings. Nonparametric analyses revealed comparable purchase intentions across the three modalities, suggesting that color cues can operate effectively across both product-based and environmental sources. Correlational analyses indicated that red selections were positively associated with sustainability ratings, primarily when presented on packaging, whereas blue selections were positively associated with healthiness ratings under ambient lighting. Green received the highest mean ratings for both sustainability and healthiness, yet these preferences did not translate into purchase intentions, highlighting a dissociation between evaluative judgments and actual behavior. Higher sustainability consciousness was linked to fewer white and, to a lesser extent, blue product selections, particularly under shelf-edge lighting. These patterns suggest that perceived healthiness drove blue selections, while red selections reflected sustainability perceptions in a packaging-specific context, and that behavioral impact may be moderated by both consumer attitudes and environmental presentation conditions. Overall, our findings suggest that environmental lighting can shift communicative agency from the product to the surrounding retail context, highlighting its potential as a sensory marketing cue that shapes consumer perception and decision-making at the level of the retail environment rather than the product alone.