Ambient lighting and basket construction in an immersive supermarket

Retailers use store atmospherics to influence how shoppers construct baskets, yet isolating and testing atmospheric effects in operating stores is costly and difficult to standardize. Across two studies, this research examines whether an ambient lighting configuration alters basket size. Study 1 used an immersive virtual reality supermarket and showed that bright (vs. dim) lighting increased basket size and raised the basket-level Nutri-Score total, with no reliable difference in average Nutri-Score per item. Study 2 conceptually replicated the basket-size effect in a larger online sample using video and product images from the same virtual supermarket. Bright lighting again increased basket size but neither the basket-level Nutri-Score total nor average Nutri-Score per item differed reliably. Across both studies, bright lighting increased how many products shoppers selected without reliable evidence that the average selected product had a less favorable Nutri-Score. Together, the studies show that a digitally rendered ambient lighting configuration can affect basket size across two virtual-store implementations. Virtual supermarkets can therefore serve as controlled testbeds for early-stage evaluation of programmable atmospherics and basket-level outcomes.