International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622

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International Journal of Information Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijinfomgt

Does imagination compensate for the need for touch in

360-virtual shopping?
Nino Ruusunen *, Heli Hallikainen , Tommi Laukkanen
University of Eastern Finland Business School, PL 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The inability to touch products is a fundamental shortcoming in online shopping because humans typically use
Need for touch the sense of touch to evaluate the utilitarian product functionality and to obtain hedonic sensory enjoyment,
Embodied cognition which the instrumental and autotelic need for touch capture. This study of 900 consumers looks at the interplay
Virtual store
between need for touch and imagination to study how imagination compensates for the lack of touch when
Online retailing
Imagination
consumers shop in a 360-virtual store. The study finds that while telepresence of a 360-virtual store improves
Digital sensory marketing consumer attitudes toward virtual shopping, the need for hedonic sensory enjoyment – autotelic need for touch –
significantly reduces this effect. Further, imagination can compensate for the need for touch; yet this finding
holds only for the instrumental need for touch, not for the autotelic need for touch. Consequently, we conclude
that imagination can compensate for the utilitarian need to touch products in a 360-virtual store.

1. Introduction
Recent literature emphasizes that online retailing is rapidly evolving
into an ambient experience, and virtual shopping environments enable
novel opportunities for companies to engage and build stronger re­
lationships with consumers (Cowan & Ketron, 2019; Qasem, 2021).
Therefore, some visionary retailers execute initiatives through sensory
enabling technologies (SETs), multichannel human-machine interfaces,
and extended reality (XR) while they develop reality-enhancing online
shopping experiences to engage consumers in shopping (Dwivedi et al.,
2021; Gatter et al., 2022; Laukkanen et al., 2021; Papagiannidis et al.,
2014; Rauschnabel, 2021).
What, then, is missing from online shopping? Based on the research
conducted in physical brick-and-mortar stores, we know that consumers
have a need to touch products before the purchase-decision (Peck &
Childers, 2003a). Yet the practical challenge with online shopping is
that it can stimulate human senses and the sense of touch only to a
limited extent, which typically results as an imperfect sensory experi­
ence for a consumer. Compared to a traditional online store, a 360-vir­
tual store is more advanced in stimulating the human senses, due to it
being more immersive, interactive, and livelier shopping environment
(Choi & Taylor, 2014; Coyle & Thorson, 2001; Papagiannidis et al.,
2017). Consequently, the present study explores the possibilities of a
360-virtual store in compensating for the lack of touch in online
shopping through the interplay between need for touch and imagina­
tion. Our study deals with a practical question, how can imagination
compensate for the need for touch when consumers shop online? We
address the question with our focus on the interrelationships between
the telepresence a 360-virtual store triggers on consumer’s attitude to­
ward 360-virtual shopping, moderated by the interplay between need
for touch and imagination. Fundamentally, a 360-virtual store repre­
sents a step ahead in the evolution of online shopping, as it enables
improved immersiveness through interactivity, e.g., by allowing con­
sumers to move forward and backward, zoom in and click hot-points
when moving around the store (Cowan et al., 2021). Moreover, the
360-virtual store allows consumers to acquire a feeling of being physi­
cally present in the shopping environment, which differentiates it from
traditional online stores (Berg & Vance, 2017). In computer-mediated
environments, this sensation of “being there” is commonly referred to
as telepresence (Mollen & Wilson, 2010), and a 360-virtual store can
provide greater levels of telepresence compared to conventional
two-dimensional online stores (Nah, Eschenbrenner, & DeWester,
2011). In the present study, a 360-virtual store refers to a 360-virtual
store accessed using a personal computer or a mobile device, similar
to that by Papagiannidis et al. (2017), as opposed to fully immersive
environments used via head-mounted displays.
Theoretically, our research builds on the theory of embodied
cognition (Foglia & Wilson, 2013; Krishna & Schwarz, 2014), according

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: nino.ruusunen@uef.fi (N. Ruusunen), heli.hallikainen@uef.fi (H. Hallikainen), tommi.laukkanen@uef.fi (T. Laukkanen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2023.102622
Received 6 June 2022; Received in revised form 30 December 2022; Accepted 4 January 2023
Available online 7 January 2023
0268-4012/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
N. Ruusunen et al.
to which the human body and the body’s interaction with the environ­
ment constitute and contribute to human cognition. Grounded on the
theory of embodied cognition, our research considers that a consumer’s
bodily actions such as touch, are tied to the imagination, and to the
capability and accuracy of the imagination to recall past experiences
related to touch. Sensory elements are present whenever consumers
interact, and consumers’ decision-making and purchase behavior are
highly dependent on sensory cues (Biswas et al., 2019; Spence et al.,
2014) because, fundamentally, every consumer experience stimulates
the human senses (Krishna, 2012; Krishna et al., 2014). Due to the
limited sensory interaction in the online environment, a product bought
online often turns out to be somehow different than what the consumer
imagined it to be (Ketron, 2018); consequently, a lack of sensory in­
formation can lead to a lessened perceived value of the online offerings,
as well as dissatisfaction and unease with the online experience (Heller
et al., 2019). The lack of being able to touch products is indeed a widely
acknowledged practical challenge for online shopping (Citrin et al.,
2003; Lederman & Klatzky, 2004; Yazdanparast & Spears, 2012), and it
is likely that consumers’ need for touch reduces the attractiveness of
online shopping (Brasel & Gips, 2014; Kühn et al., 2020).
Imagination refers to the human ability to mentally picture products
and events through all the five human senses. By imagination, we refer
to the act of forming a mental image of something that is not present
(Arcangeli, 2020). When it comes to products, what consumers reenact
in their imagination is based on their previous experiences (Rucińska &
Gallagher, 2021), so when a consumer observes a product, this auto­
matically triggers the prior experiences with interacting with the prod­
uct (Elder & Krishna, 2012). Therefore, seeing a product in a 360-virtual
store awakens a consumer’s previous embodied experiences with that
kind of product in the physical reality, thus helping the consumer to
imagine its usage and different sensorial aspects (Petit et al., 2019),
albeit in the digital realm. Prior research interrelates need for touch to
embodied cognition in sensory information processing (Chylinski et al.,
2015) and consequently, we suggest that the interplay between imagi­
nation and need for touch can offer a way to compensate for the lack of
touch in a 360-virtual store.
The present study makes three key contributions to the literature on
embodied cognition while also contributing to the nascent but rapidly
growing body of research on digital sensory marketing (Petit et al.,
2019). First, we show that telepresence in a 360-virtual has a positive
relationship with consumer attitude toward virtual shopping. Secondly,
we find that consumer’s autotelic need for touch products, that is, the
use of touch for hedonic purpose and in obtaining sensory enjoyment,
attenuates the above effect. Third, we demonstrate the interplay be­
tween need for touch and imagination and show that imagination can
compensate for the instrumental need for touch in the relationship be­
tween telepresence and attitude toward virtual shopping, but this
finding does not hold for the interplay between autotelic need for touch
and imagination.
2. Theoretical framework
2.1. Embodied cognition
We ground the theoretical background of the study on the theory and
research on embodied cognition (Foglia & Wilson, 2013; Krishna &
Schwarz, 2014), according to the which human’s cognitive processes are
anchored in physiological states and the brain’s unique sensory mo­
dality processing systems (Barsalou, 2008; Niedenthal et al., 2005) so
that the physical experience influences human’s psychological state
(Landau et al., 2010). The concept of embodied cognition mainly derives
from research in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, and
fundamentally, embodied cognition acts as a framework in under­
standing cross-modal interaction between human sensory modalities
and associated cognitive processing. Indeed, embodied cognition em­
phasizes that cognition and sensory experiences are linked together
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International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622
(Krishna et al., 2017). We consider that a consumer’s bodily actions such
as touch, are tied to the brain’s cognitive processing systems, including
imagination, and the capability and accuracy of the imagination to recall
past touch related experiences. Chylinski et al. (2015) argue that the
need for touch acts as a link between cross-modal sensitivity and
embodied cognition in sensory information processing. According to the
theory of embodied cognition, cognitive processing is contextual and
occurs when humans interact with the environment, in addition to being
anchored in physiological states (Barsalou, 2008; Wilson, 2002). This
links to human’s everyday actions and behavior, as observing a product
typically prompts the prior experiences with interacting with a similar
type of a product (Elder & Krishna, 2012). Therefore, all sensory cues
influence consumer judgment and behavior (Krishna, 2012).
Embodied cognition can take place in both real world-environments
as well as in digital realms (Wilson, 2002) so that a consumer’s
real-world experiences are encoded in memory as multisensory repre­
sentations that include perceptions, actions, and thoughts regarding
these experiences (Barsalou, 2008). When a consumer interacts with a
product in the digital realm, the interaction sparks the embodied mental
simulation of interacting with a similar product encountered in a
real-world environment (Petit et al., 2019) and thus, online encounters
engage the same sensory specific parts of the brain as real-world en­
counters (Petit et al., 2019). This means, for example, that when a
consumer touches a piece of furniture to inspect its texture in a
real-world environment, this experience is encoded and stored in a
specific area in the brain that operates and stores haptic information.
When a consumer encounters a piece of furniture in a 360-virtual store,
the consumer can re-enact experiences related to the texture perceived
in the real-world in his/her mind, and thus fill in the product features
which are not physically attainable (Petit et al., 2019). Indeed,
embodied cognition helps to explain how sensory perception can in­
fluence a consumer’s cognition, emotion and behavior through
perception and mental representations (Krishna & Schwarz, 2014). Ac­
cording to Rucińska and Gallagher (2021), our bodily performances,
including touch, help consumers to be better at imagining. Indeed, the
results of Peck and Childers (2003a) support this by showing that con­
sumers with a high need for touch can chronically access their
touch-related memories more quickly than consumers with a low need
for touch. Furthermore, access to detailed memories can lead to an
increased level of imagination (McFarland et al., 2017). Based on this, a
consumer with a strong need for touch undergoes more touch related
experiences through imagination compared to a consumer who is more
passive regarding a need for touch. While the sense of touch stimulates
imagination, consumers with a strong need for touch will also receive
higher compensation through imagination because embodied cognition
forms how and what we imagine (Rucińska & Gallagher, 2021).
2.2. Telepresence
Telepresence is a characteristic prevalent to 360-virtual stores
because such stores typically mimic real-life brick-and-mortar stores and
consequently are more immersive and realistic, enabling a higher tele­
presence whilst shopping online. Steuer (1992) defines telepresence as
“the experience of presence in an environment by means of a commu­
nication medium”. Fiore et al. (2005) describe telepresence as a place
where the consumer becomes immersed and perceives the artificial
environment providing both a cognitive and sensory input like that of a
real environment. As 360-virtual stores create new realities separate
from real-life surroundings, telepresence plays a key role in constructing
virtual consumer experiences (Cauberghe et al., 2011; Pelet et al.,
2017). Unlike conventional two-dimensional online environments,
360-virtual environments can reflect greater levels of telepresence (Kim
& Ko, 2019; Nah et al., 2011). Thus, when a consumer immerses oneself
in a 360-virtual store, the capacity to receive stimuli is limited to that
specific environment, and one temporarily forgets real-life surroundings
(Nah et al., 2011). Telepresence positively relates to consumer’s
N. Ruusunen et al.
embodiment due to increase in vividness of information (Haans & Ijs­
selsteijn, 2012) while telepresence also has a positive effect in driving
consumer’s mental simulation (Bogicevic et al., 2019). The earlier
research also finds that the sense of immersion positively influences a
consumer’s sense of product presence as well as perceived realism
(Daassi & Debbabi, 2021). Moreover, a reality-enhancing multisensory
environment leads to an enhanced user experience especially when a
consumer buys hedonic products (Mishra, Shulka, Rana, & Dwivedi,
2021). Indeed, based on the research that exists, telepresence is known
to reinforce several positive outcomes, such as consumer trust (Baker
et al., 2019), enjoyment (Dholakia & Zhao, 2009; Nah et al., 2011),
behavioral intentions (Fiore et al., 2005), and consumer attitudes to­
ward virtual shopping (Dholakia & Zhao, 2009; Nah et al., 2011; Suh &
Chang, 2006). Consequently, we hypothesize that:
H1: Telepresence in a 360-virtual store is positively related to a con­
sumer’s attitude toward virtual shopping.
2.3. Need for touch (NFT)
In the digital realm, being unable to touch products limits con­
sumer’s sensory perceptions and distracts the shopping experience and
consequently, not being able to touch products is a fundamental defi­
ciency in online shopping. Thus, consumers with a strong need for touch
may prefer to buy products from traditional brick-and-mortar stores
(Citrin et al., 2003), compared to online shopping. In shopping, the sense
of touch plays two essential roles for consumers: first, acquiring func­
tional information about the product attributes while making a
goal-oriented purchase decision, and second, the general enjoyment
obtained from the tactile sensory experience (Klatzky and Peck, 2012).
Peck and Childers (2003a) introduced the need for touch (NFT) scale to
measure the use of haptic exploration, with haptic exploration referring
to human interaction involving the sense of touch. The need for touch
captures individual differences in the preference for extracting and
utilizing touch in processing information (Peck & Childers, 2003a). The
need for touch scale consists of two distinct but interrelated dimensions:
(1) the autotelic need for touch (aNFT), and (2) the instrumental need
for touch (iNFT). The autotelic need for touch signifies the consumer’s
emotional connection with the product, whereas the instrumental need
for touch represents the utilitarian dimension of touch (De Canio &
Fuentes-Blasco, 2021). In their work, Peck and Childers (2003b) find
that some consumers use haptic exploration more chronically as a source
of information, and that their preferences and motivations for using
tactile exploration as a source of information differ. This is what the
need for touch fundamentally captures.
Consumers with a greater need for touch feel typically more uncer­
tain about a product judgment when they have a straight line of sight to
the product but are unable to touch it (Peck & Childers, 2003b). Man­
zano et al. (2016) find that a consumer with a strong autotelic or
instrumental need for touch tends to show a lower preference for online
shopping than a consumer with a low autotelic or instrumental need for
touch. Moreover, Kühn et al. (2020) find that a consumer with a strong
autotelic or instrumental need for touch is willing to pay higher price
premiums for a product in an offline (rather than an online) store. They
also find that a consumer with a greater autotelic or instrumental need
for touch is more concerned about the quality of the products when
shopping online.
Prior research shows that telepresence increases sensory-motor
perception and improves the consumer experience of virtual reality
(Cowan and Ketron, 2019). Additionally, both online (Suh & Chang,
2006) and virtual reality (Van Kerrebroeck et al., 2017) stores provide
greater vividness for consumers. However, consumers still cannot touch
products in the 360-virtual store, meaning they remain unable to inspect
a product’s characteristics, such as material and texture, and similarly,
neither can consumers touch a product for sensory pleasure and enjoy­
ment. Therefore, even though telepresence increases the perceived
immersiveness, having an impact on consumer’s shopping experience in
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International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622
a 360-virtual store, both the instrumental and autotelic need for touch
reduces the effect that telepresence has on the attitude toward virtual
shopping. We hypothesize that:
H2: The a) autotelic and b) instrumental need for touch have a decreasing
effect on the relationship between telepresence and the attitude toward virtual
shopping.
2.4. Imagination
Imagination refers to the capability of human beings to envision
things and events through mental imagery (Pearson, 2019). According
to MacInnis (1987), imagination varies individually and depends on the
consumer’s capability to produce sensory information in working
memory. Phillips (2017) states that controlled imagination begins with
the consumer’s conscious choice, and the consumer can guide and
decide what to imagine, whereas uncontrolled imagination, also
referred to as spontaneous imagination, occurs without the consumer’s
conscious control. Uncontrolled imagination can appear suddenly, e.g.,
when daydreaming, and usually it ends when the consumer concentrates
on thinking about something else. Since uncontrolled imagination may
positively affect consumer choice behavior, practitioners are particu­
larly interested in achieving a better understanding of it (Phillips, 2017).
To contrast, in controlled imagination, a consumer presents sensory
information in the working memory which can be multisensory (Mac­
Innis & Price, 1987); thus, imagination stimulates all five human senses,
of which visual mental imagery is the dominant (Pearson, 2019).
Imagination requires the activation of areas in human brain which
process specific sensory stimuli (Barsalou, 2008). Taylor et al. (1998)
argue that through mental simulation, a consumer can imagine events
and make them feel more real, yet the difference between imagination
and mental simulation is that mental simulation is restricted to repre­
sentations of self-action, while imagination refers to the consumer
constructing theoretical scenarios, including imagining possible future
occurrences, recreating past events, or recreating past experiences
mixed with imaginary components where the consumer is the main
character (Nielsen et al., 2018).
For the consumer, seeing product information enables the mental
simulation of product interaction (Elder & Krishna, 2012). When
imagining events, a consumer usually bases mental simulations on
actual or potential behavior (Nielsen et al., 2018), and in using behav­
ioral scenarios in imagining, imagination influences the consumer’s
intentions to behave in such a way (Schlosser, 2003). Petit et al. (2017)
show that a consumer who imagines the sensory experience of eating
may become satisfied with smaller food portions, demonstrating the
power that mental imagery exerts on human behavior. Furthermore,
engaging in mental simulation influences sensory pleasure (Larson et al.,
2014). When trying out new products, a consumer instinctively pro­
duces a mental simulation that strengthens the product evaluation
(Nielsen et al., 2018). Phillips, Olson, & Baumgartner, (1995) find that
some consumers form mental simulations of future consumption situa­
tions, however, consumers differ in this respect, and the capability of
consumers to imagine is not equal. Consequently, the level of detail that
a consumer can develop through mental simulations varies resulting so
that a consumer with a lower imagination capacity faces more chal­
lenges in imagining products, which can lower product ratings (Dahl &
Hoeffler, 2004; Petrova & Cialdini, 2005).
Based on this reasoning, we consider it likely that consumers with a
more vivid imagination can better envision product touch in a 360-vir­
tual store because consumers with a strong need for haptic exploration
can more easily recall and have quicker access to their memories of
touching products (Peck & Childers, 2003a). The more accessible the
information in the memory, the more often the consumer, in a controlled
or uncontrolled fashion, uses the information when evaluating products
(Phillips, 2017). Furthermore, consumers with more accurate memories
can have a heightened level of imagination (McFarland et al., 2017).
According to Huang and Tseng (2015) consumers with a high need for
N. Ruusunen et al. International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622

touch usually have a greater imagination capability compared to con­ Table 1

sumers with a low need for touch and similarly, Racat et al. (2021) find Descriptive statistics.
that consumers with a greater need for touch can stimulate touch sen­ Construct Minimum Maximum Mean Standard
sations stored in their memory with the aid of haptic imagery. Conse­ deviation
quently, imagining haptic occurrences can evince similar outcomes to Telepresence 1 7 3.25 1.56
touch in the real world (Peck et al., 2013). Previous research shows that Attitude 1 7 4.78 1.75
both online (Suh & Chang, 2006) and virtual reality (Van Kerrebroeck Autotelic need for touch -3 3 -0.27 1.68
et al., 2017) create greater vividness, leading to an increase in Instrumental need for -3 3 0.30 1.40
touch
sensory-motor perception (Cowan and Ketron, 2019), while vividness Imagination 1 7 4.78 1.31
also positively affects telepresence (Papagiannidis et al., 2017). Creating
a sense of actual touch by increasing the levels of realism is the main
purpose of haptic imagery (Huang & Liao, 2017), and increasing the furniture retailer BoConcept (https://www.boconcept.com/en-gb/
amount of haptic imagery increases consumer confidence, leading to a inspiration/virtual-store-visit) for a minimum of 180 s in order to pro­
greater online purchase intention (de Vries et al., 2018; Lv et al., 2020). vide them with a realistic 360-virtual store experience. This was to
Prior research finds that a more vivid mental imagery also positively ensure that all respondents had an equal experience of the 360-virtual
affects attitudes and purchase intentions (Schlosser, 2003) for con­ store before they continued to fill out the questionnaire. Thereafter,
sumers with a high need for touch, and for those who cannot touch the the participants responded to questionnaire items related to the
product (Spears & Yazdanparast, 2014). Building on the prior research, following: telepresence, attitude toward virtual shopping, autotelic and
we hypothesize that: instrumental need for touch, and imagination. Finally, we asked the
H3: Imagination compensates for the negative effect of the a) autotelic participants about their prior experience of using a 360-virtual store.
and b) instrumental need for touch on the relationship between telepresence The sample consists of 900 valid responses and Table 2 describes
and the attitude toward virtual shopping. respondent characteristics.
To account for the potentially confounding factors, we control for the
effects of gender, age, and the consumer’s past experience of 360-virtual
3.2. Construct validity
shopping (Fig. 1).
A confirmatory factor analysis indicates adequate fit with the data
3. Data and methods (χ2 = 1327.964 (df = 220) p < 0.001, CFI = 0.937, TLI = 0.927;
RMSEA = 0.075). Cronbach’s alpha (α) and composite reliability (CR)
3.1. Measures and data collection scores both indicate appropriate reliability (Fornell & Larcker, 1981),
and all factor loadings are statistically significant (p < 0.001) and
We measure telepresence using a four-item scale adopted from Rose, greater than the generally considered threshold of 0.70 (Appendix A) (e.
Clark, Samouel, and Hair (Rose et al., 2012), and the attitude toward g., (Hair et al., 2019). Further, the average variance extracted (AVE)
virtual shopping with a three-item scale from Grohmann (2009). The values are all greater than 0.6, supporting convergent validity, and the
12-item Need for Touch (NFT) scale, which is divided into autotelic and square roots of AVE values exceed the between-construct correlations
instrumental need for touch, comes from Peck and Childers (2003a), and (Table 3), supporting discriminant validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
the four-item scale for measuring imagination is based on Johnson
(2014). We use a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = Strongly
Table 2
disagree to 7 = Strongly agree, to measure the constructs of telepresence
Respondent characteristics.
and imagination, and a scale ranging from -3 = Strongly disagree to
Frequency %
3 = Strongly agree to measure the need for touch. When measuring the
attitude toward virtual shopping, we use a seven-point semantic dif­ Gender
ferential scale ranging from negative to positive, dislike to like, and Female 419 46.6
Male 481 53.4
favorable to unfavorable. Prior to running the analysis, we reverse coded
Age
the last item of the attitude scale (Appendix A). Table 1 shows the 18–29 178 19.8
descriptive statistics of our research constructs. 30–39 188 20.9
To collect the data for this study, we used an independent market 40–49 159 17.7
50–59 199 22.1
research company. The market research company compensated the
60- 176 19.5
participants with a small monetary incentive for their participation in Previous experience of using a 360-virtual store
the study. The data collection began with participants filling out their No 690 66.7
background characteristics, including gender and age. Then, we Yes 210 23.3
instructed all the participants to visit the 360-virtual store of a Danish

Fig. 1. Conceptual model of need for touch – imagination interaction in 360-virtual shopping.

4
N. Ruusunen et al. International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622

Table 3
Discriminant validity.
Constructs Attitude Telepresence Autotelic NFT Instrumental NFT Imagination

Attitude 0.925
Telepresence 0.513 0.828
Autotelic NFT 0.175 0.349 0.880
Instrumental NFT 0.031 0.213 0.747 0.787
Imagination 0.298 0.293 0.336 0.306 0.802
Marker variable 0.089 0.069 0.073 0.115 0.062

Given the study’s cross-sectional nature, we controlled for common
method variance in the study design before the data collection and by
using statistical procedures after the data collection (Chang et al., 2010;
Podsakoff et al., 2003). To control for the common method variance
during the data collection, we used differently coded scales (semantic
differential and Likert scales), reverse coded questions and protected the
respondents’ anonymity, as suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2003). As for
the statistical procedures, we used the CFA marker technique approach
(Lindell & Whitney, 2001; Williams et al., 2010) with a theoretically
unrelated questionnaire item stating “I like blue clothes” as the marker
variable (Miller & Chiodo, 2008). The results show that study variables
have low and non-significant correlations (0.062–0.115) with the
marker variable, indicating that common method bias should not be a
concern. We follow Armstrong and Overton (1977) in examining for
non-response bias, and our comparison between the first and the last
quartile of the respondents show no systematic differences between
early and late respondents.
4. Results
To test our hypotheses, we use regression analysis in Mplus 8.6. In
the analysis, we estimate the variables as averaged composite variables
of the respective measurement items listed in Appendix A. We run the
analysis step by step, and build on six sequential models, which allows
us to compare the results (Table 4) and evaluate the explanatory power
of the focal variables. Model 1 includes only the control variables, of
which age (β = − 0.023, p < 0.001) and experience are statistically
significant (β = 0.214, p = 0.004). The R2 value of the model is 0.054.
Model 2 adds our central independent variable, telepresence, which
increases the R2 to 0.255. The results support hypothesis H1 (β = 0.512,
p < 0.001) showing that the relationship between telepresence and
attitude toward virtual shopping is highly significant and positive.
Models 3 and 4 add the interaction effects of the autotelic and
instrumental need for touch, respectively, with the notion that following
statistical guidelines (Dawson, 2014), we standardized all variables
involved in multiplicative interactions. In Model 3, which adds the
interaction effect of autotelic need for touch to the relationship between
telepresence and attitude toward virtual shopping, the R2 is 0.258. The
negative interaction effect (β = − 0.056, p = 0.052) is marginally sig­
nificant (p < 0.10) (Pritschet et al., 2016), which lends support to our
hypothesis H2a. Model 4 adds the interaction of the instrumental need
for touch to the relationship between telepresence and the attitude to­
ward virtual shopping, which leads to an R2 of 0.262. Since the inter­
action effect is not statistically significant (β = − 0.015, p = 0.611),
hypothesis H2b is not supported.
To better understand the interplay of autotelic and instrumental need
for touch with imagination, and to test hypothesis H3, models 5 and 6
add a 3-way moderation effect of imagination, respectively. In Model 5,
the interaction term [telepresence x autotelic need for touch x imagi­
nation] is statistically non-significant (β = 0.018, p = 0.623), which
lends no support to hypothesis H3a. This model yields an increased R2 of
0.286. In Model 6, the interaction term [telepresence x instrumental
need for touch x imagination] is positive and statistically significant
(β = 0.097, p = 0.006), lending support to hypothesis H3b. This model
yields an increased R2 of 0.299.
Cohen (1992) suggests thresholds for evaluating the model’s
explanatory power such that the value for small, medium, and large R2
are 0.0196, 0.1304, and 0.2592, respectively. An examination of the R2
change indicates that telepresence as a sole variable strongly explains
attitude variation, while the addition of iNFT and aNFT increases the R2

Table 4
Results.
Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

β p β p β p β p β p β p

Independent variable
Telepresence 0.512 < 0.001 0.465 < 0.001 0.474 < 0.001 0.421 < 0.001 0.405 < 0.001
2-way interaction
aNFT -0.018 0.583 -0.067 0.052
iNFT -0.087 0.003 -0.156 < 0.001
Interaction terms
Telepresence x aNFT -0.056 0.052 -0.092 0.006
Telepresence x iNFT -0.015 0.611 -0.048 0.153
3-way interaction
Imagination 0.183 < 0.001 0.178 < 0.001
Telepresence x imagination 0.070 0.040 0.062 0.052
aNFT x imagination 0.024 0.485
iNFT x imagination 0.005 0.880
Telepresence x aNFT x imagination 0.018 0.623
Telepresence x iNFT x imagination 0.097 0.006
Control variables
Gender 0.134 0.240 0.127 0.209 0.032 0.285 0.050 0.088 0.021 0.481 0.026 0.359
Age -0.023 < 0.001 -0.019 < 0.001 -0.149 < 0.001 -0.161 < 0.001 -0.173 < 0.001 -0.167 < 0.001
Experience 0.214 0.004 0.057 0.389 0.027 0.361 0.028 0.334 0.026 0.370 0.024 0.405
Reliability
R2 0.054 0.255 0.258 0.262 0.286 0.299
ΔR2 (vs. Model 1) 0.201 0.204 0.208 0.232 0.245
ΔR2 (vs. previous model) 0.201 (vs. Model 1) 0.003 (vs. Model 2) 0.007 (vs. Model 2) 0.028 (vs. Model 3) 0.037 (vs. Model 4)

5
N. Ruusunen et al.
only marginally, with an R2 increase of 0.07 and 0.03, respectively.
Further, when we add imagination into this interplay, the explanatory
power of the model improves with 0.028 and 0.037 for Models 5 and 6,
respectively. The explanatory power of both Models 5 and 6 (28.6% and
29.9%, respectively) exceeds the Cohen (1992) threshold for a large
explanatory power. Consequently, the final 3-way interaction model
explains the variance of attitude toward virtual shopping relatively well.
Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate the results for different combinations of the low
and high values of the need for touch and imagination (Dawson &
Richter, 2006; Dawson, 2014). Consistent with the results reported in
Table 4, Fig. 2 illustrates no noticeable moderation effects when
comparing different combinations of high versus low conditions of the
autotelic need for touch and imagination on the relationship between
telepresence and the attitude toward virtual shopping. Fig. 3 illustrates
the interaction of the instrumental need for touch and imagination on
the relationship between telepresence and the attitude toward virtual
shopping, and it shows that the effect is the strongest for the condition of
having both a high instrumental need for touch, and a high imagination.
5. Discussion
The results of the present study contribute to the research on
embodied cognition (Barsalou, 2008; Foglia & Wilson, 2013; Krishna &
Schwarz, 2014) with a better understanding of how imagination shapes
the effect of the need for touch on the relationship between telepresence
and attitude toward virtual shopping in a 360-virtual store. As the
360-virtual store represents a more realistic and immersive shopping
environment compared to traditional online stores, we first demonstrate
that telepresence stimulated by the 360-virtual store visit enhances
consumer attitude toward virtual shopping. Second, we demonstrate
how the two separate yet interrelated dimensions of need for touch –
autotelic and instrumental need for touch – moderate the relationship
between telepresence and attitude toward virtual shopping. Interest­
ingly we find that only autotelic need for touch moderates the rela­
tionship between telepresence and attitude toward virtual shopping.
Third, the results shed a light on the interplay between need for touch
and imagination by demonstrating that, indeed, imagination can
compensate for the need for touch when consumers shop in a 360-virtual
store. However, this finding holds only for the interplay between
instrumental need for touch and imagination. This is in line with
Rucińska and Gallagher (2021), who argue that the use of the perceptual
motor system makes imagining easier for those who use imagination
more often. Overall, the results of this study lead us to emphasize the
different roles that autotelic and instrumental need for touch have in
consumer attitudes toward virtual stores and we consider that the two
dimensions of need for touch deserve more attention in future research.
Fig. 2. The interaction of telepresence, aNFT and imagination on the attitude toward virtual shopping.
6
International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622
Although the autotelic and instrumental need for touch are two separate
dimensions of the need for touch, many studies concentrate on the need
for touch as a whole, leaving these two dimensions uninspected.
While research on virtual shopping is only emerging (Xi & Hamari,
2021), our first contribution is to demonstrate the relevance of tele­
presence in driving consumer attitudes toward shopping in 360-virtual
stores. Telepresence refers to “the experience of presence in an envi­
ronment by means of a communication medium” (Steuer, 1992), p. 6).
Therefore, media rich and interactive technologies are more easily
incorporated into embodiment because they enable more complex
sensorimotor interactions (Haans & Ijsselsteijn, 2012). Consequently,
telepresence plays a key role in influencing consumer behavior and
interaction with interactive technologies (Kim et al., 2021), which, ac­
cording to our findings, holds also for 360-virtual stores. Given that a
360-virtual store is more advanced in stimulating the human senses due
the interactive and immersive characteristics that it possesses, tele­
presence leads to a positive consumer attitude toward virtual shopping.
While lack of touch is a fundamental deficiency of online shopping,
our second contribution is to demonstrate how the two separate yet
interrelated dimensions of need for touch – autotelic and instrumental
need for touch – shape the relationship between telepresence and atti­
tude toward virtual shopping. Kühn et al. (2020) find that both hedonic
and utilitarian dimensions of touch influence negatively on consumer
judgments and consequently. Moreover, the lack of touch can result
even in negative perceptions and feelings toward online shopping (Citrin
et al., 2003). However, we find that only the autotelic need for touch
hinders the relationship between telepresence and the attitude toward
virtual shopping, while the moderating effect of instrumental need for
touch is not supported. The theory of need for touch supports the results
regarding autotelic need for touch in stating that consumers cannot
satisfy the need for sensory enjoyment and pleasure without actually
touching the product (Peck & Childers, 2003a,b). Thus, compensating
the hedonic side of touch with visual information is more difficult than
compensating the lack of touch with visual information for the utili­
tarian dimension (Peck & Childers, 2003b). We consider that this is
likely to explain the different results between autotelic and instrumental
need for touch, and why it is mainly the autotelic need for touch that
hinders the telepresence – attitude relationship.
Our third contribution sheds light on the interrelationship between
need for touch and imagination in a 360-virtual store. Imagination has
an essential role in compensating for the need for touch, because seeing
a product in a 360-virtual store awakens a consumer’s previous expe­
riences when interacting with a similar type of a product while it
simultaneously also helps to imagine the usage of the product, together
with its sensorial characteristics (Petit et al., 2019). Consequently, we
expected that imagination would compensate both the autotelic and
N. Ruusunen et al.
Fig. 3. The interaction of telepresence, iNFT and imagination on the attitude toward virtual shopping.
instrumental need for touch, yet we find that the interplay between need
for touch and imagination is supported only in the case of instrumental
need for touch, but not autotelic need for touch. We consider that this is
because it is easier for a consumer to imagine and recall the utilitarian
side of touch, such as product size and shape, whereas it takes more
effort to imagine hedonic aspects of touch, such as feelings of sensory
pleasure and enjoyment through the sense of touch. To illustrate, it takes
less effort to imagine the use of a product, such as screwdriver or a tablet
PC, than it is to imagine what kind of haptic pleasure the smoothness and
softness of a woolen sweater gives. This is supported by the findings of
McCabe and Nowlis (2003), who find that geometric haptic properties,
such as shape and size, can be more easily inspected visually than ma­
terial haptic properties, such as softness. Through the interplay of tele­
presence, need for touch and imagination, consumers can mentally
imagine some of the haptic features related to the utilitarian dimension
of touch, which the instrumental need for touch captures. This finding is
supported by Spears et al. (2016), according to whom imagination tends
to be greater during utilitarian purchase tasks, which may explain why
the interaction effect of need for touch and imagination is impactful
regarding instrumental need for touch only. Peck and Childers (2003a)
show that only consumers with a greater instrumental need for touch
appreciate the haptic exploration under product choice tasks. This is
because consumers with a greater instrumental need for touch have
more chronic accessibility to their touch-related memories (Peck &
Childers, 2003a) and are more capable of stimulating touch sensations
stored in the memory (Racat et al., 2021). Additionally, the more
detailed memories consumers have, the greater the imagery capacity
they possess (McFarland et al., 2017). Lending support to the above
arguments, our results show that consumers with a combination of high
instrumental need for touch and high imagination benefit the most from
the interplay of telepresence, instrumental need for touch, and imagi­
nation in driving consumer attitudes. Moreover, according to Peck and
Childers (2003a), consumers with a low instrumental need for touch do
not value the haptic exploration of product characteristic qualities.
Performing mental simulations enhanced by a reality-mimicking
360-virtual store environment as a basis for mental simulations can
result in enriched multisensory experiences and consequently mental
simulations can assist the consumer to interact with the product (Elder &
Krishna, 2012).
5.1. Theoretical contributions and implications
The research makes three significant theoretical contributions. First,
the main objective of the study was to explore how imagination can
compensate for the need for touch when consumers shop in a 360-virtual
store. The research model theoretically contributes to the theory of
7
International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622
embodied cognition (Barsalou, 2008; Foglia & Wilson, 2013; Krishna &
Schwarz, 2014), and it combines telepresence, need for touch and
imagination in understanding consumer attitude toward virtual shop­
ping. We argue that the interplay between telepresence, need for touch
and imagination operates as a lens of embodiment and reflects the prior
bodily performances of the consumers which impact how good con­
sumers are at using imagination as a compensating mechanism. The
present study shows that consumers with a high instrumental need for
touch, referring to consumers who have a greater tendency for utili­
tarian haptic exploration, combined with a high imagination, are better
capable of compensating for the need for touch in the 360-virtual store
through imagination. Thus, the compensating effect is strongest for the
condition of having both a high instrumental need for touch and a high
imagination, whereas the effect is the weakest for consumers with a
combination of low need for touch combined with a high imagination.
This finding contributes to the theory and research on embodied
cognition, demonstrating how the interplay between telepresence, need
for touch and imagination influences consumer attitudes in 360-virtual
stores.
Second, this research also extends the theory and research on need
for touch (Peck & Childers, 2003a,b), by exploring differences between
autotelic and instrumental need for touch and identifying boundary
conditions on how they moderate the relationship between telepresence
and attitude towards virtual shopping. Regarding the interplay between
telepresence and need for touch, we contribute to the literature by
showing that the autotelic need for touch, but not the instrumental need
for touch, negatively moderates the relationship between telepresence
and attitude towards virtual shopping. Interestingly, when we add
imagination to this interplay, the 3-way interaction [telepresence x
autotelic/instrumental need for touch x imagination] is not supported
for the autotelic need for touch but only for the instrumental need for
touch. Thus, instrumental need for touch together with the imagination
shapes the relationship between telepresence and attitude towards vir­
tual shopping. Our contribution to the need for touch literature is in
demonstrating that the interplay between need for touch and imagina­
tion is such that consumer imagination can compensate for the need of
touch, but only under the utilitarian dimension of need for touch.
Third, this study demonstrates that in the context of 360-virtual
stores, telepresence is a key component in driving consumer attitude
toward virtual shopping as telepresence alone explains one fifth of the
variance in attitude toward virtual shopping. Telepresence ties into the
embodiment consumers perceive (Haans & Ijsselsteijn, 2012) enabling
more complex sensorimotor interactions through media richness and
vividness of information.
N. Ruusunen et al.
5.2. Implications for practice
Compared to a traditional online store, the advantage of a 360-vir­
tual store is in providing consumers with a more immersive and real­
istic shopping experience. For marketers, digital sensory marketing –
integrating new technologies into multisensory online experience (Petit
et al., 2019) – offers a new way to appeal to the consumers of today.
Despite the recent development in this domain, the interactive and
sensory-enabling technologies do not enable consumers to touch prod­
ucts in the digital realm. This results as an imperfect sensory experience,
and consequently, the practical contribution of this study is in shedding
light on the interplay between telepresence, need for touch and imagi­
nation, and in compensating for the need for touch in a visit to a 360-vir­
tual store.
According to Petit et al. (2019), visual enabling technologies repre­
sent a new form of mental imagery as they can facilitate consumers’
perceptual re-enactments and help to fill in the missing sensory inputs.
Given the ease with which managers can influence the visual elements
and the design of the 360-virtual store (Wu et al., 2021), and the fact
that the ease of processing influences consumers’ perception of products
(Schwarz, 2004), we recommend online retailers pay better attention to
visual enabling technologies and how consumers perceive visual stimuli
in the digital realm. Since recalling and imagining how the previous
product touch experiences positively affects consumer confidence in
online purchasing, practitioners can stimulate the visual sense and foster
consumer’s imagination in compensating for the lack of touch in the
360-virtual store (de Vries et al., 2018; Lv et al., 2020). Practitioners can
trigger consumers’ prior experiences by enticing consumers to interact
with the product, for instance, by holding and rotating the products
around. Awakened experiences would then help consumers to imagine
using and touching the products, thus offsetting the scarcity of
touch-related information in the 360-virtual store. A relatively simple
way for marketers to elicit haptic simulations is to use “mirror-touch”
which is also referred to as vicarious touch (Luangrath et al., 2022; Pino
et al., 2020), i.e., visual images and cues which show a hand touching a
product. Lee et al. (2009) find that consumers gain more pleasure and an
increase in sensory curiosity when the sense of realism increases relative
to the haptic sense. While curiosity grows, consumers may spend more
time in browsing the 360-virtual store. Yet it is noteworthy that based on
our findings, the interplay of telepresence, need for touch and imagi­
nation is supported only in the case of instrumental need for touch. This
suggests that it is more effective to focus marketing efforts on triggering
consumers’ past experiences on the functional characteristics of the
product rather than on the hedonic aspects of the product.
Overall, we find that the telepresence of a 360-store relates to posi­
tive consumer attitudes, which can create an opportunity for practi­
tioners to foster the perceived telepresence with the assistance of digital
sensory marketing and immersive and interactive technologies. For
instance, virtual shopping assistants modeled as avatars could further
foster the perceived interactivity by assisting consumers in finding what
they are looking for. Fundamentally, it is important to design a 360-vir­
tual store so that it encourages consumers to use their haptic imagina­
tion, especially when products are such that consumers typically like to
touch in physical brick-and-mortar stores, such as fruits and vegetables.
5.3. Limitations and future research direction
Despite the number of theoretical and practical contributions, the
present study has limitations that provide opportunities for future
research. We conducted the study in a 360-virtual store that the re­
spondents accessed via a personal computer or a mobile device. It is
likely that the visit was less immersive than if the 360-virtual store visit
had taken place using a head-mounted VR headset. This opens an avenue
for future research to compare consumer’s 360-virtual store experience
with different types of visual and sensory-enabling technologies to
better understand how such technologies can support consumer
8
International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622
decision-making in online shopping. Future research could compare
augmented and virtual reality in how they stimulate the imagination. As
augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality differ in the level of
perceived immersiveness (Farshid et al., 2018), it would be beneficial to
perform a comparative study between a traditional online store and a
360-virtual store, shopping in augmented reality and shopping in a fully
immersive virtual reality, to explore how imagination can compensate
for the lack of sensory perceptions in different settings. Generally, is
imagination capable of compensating for the lack of sensory percep­
tions, regardless of the sense, and can reality-enhancing technologies
assist the imagination in compensating for the lack of sensory perception
in every sensory modality?
According to Van Kerrebroeck et al. (2017), the future of haptic
stimuli belongs to virtual haptic gloves (Sensorial, 2021) and mid-air
tactile sensations, which opens research opportunities also in online
retailing. Could a combination of vivid imagination and virtual haptic
gloves lead to an improved product experience in virtual shopping,
similar to a real-life shopping? The possibility of exploring virtual haptic
touch using virtual gloves is soon to be reality and while
sensory-enabling technologies undergo rapid development, such tech­
nologies provide fruitful avenues for future research.
Another avenue for future research into haptics in the digital envi­
ronment is the metaverse, which offers new ways to provide consumers
with hedonic virtual experiences (Dwivedi et al., 2022). Recent studies
argue that the new metaverse offers greater immersion with opportu­
nities for multimodal and embodied interaction between the consumer
and the product (Dwivedi et al., 2022). Greater immersion combined
with telepresence should help consumers better imagine products and
thus mitigate the lack of touch that consumers experience today in
virtual environments. Metaverse could also help improve the social
dimension of commerce. Marketers can enrich the virtual retail envi­
ronment with avatars that consumers can then interact with (Barrera &
Shah, 2023; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2022). Perhaps in the future, touching
in the metaverse will not be limited to products only, but people will also
be able to touch each other. All in all, further research should increas­
ingly focus on how haptics, or the lack of it, affects consumers in the
metaverse.
Following recent studies (Alzayat & Lee, 2021; Flavián et al., 2017;
Gatter et al., 2022), we positioned need for touch in a moderating role.
Surprisingly, our results reveal that instrumental need for touch has a
significant negative effect on the attitude toward virtual shopping.
Consequently, we recommend future research to pay attention to this
finding. Moreover, future research could study the direct effects of
autotelic and instrumental need for touch on consumer attitudes and
behavior in detail.
In addition, the data collection method requires consideration. In the
present study, respondents base their responses on a visit to a furniture
retailer’s 360-virtual store. While visiting the store, respondents may
have been exposed to external stimuli, which the study could not con­
trol. As a remedy, the study could be repeated in a laboratory setting, to
increase generalizability for the findings. Virtual multisensory experi­
ences can be context-specific (Mishra et al., 2021), and while we used a
furniture retailer’s 360-virtual store, repeating the study in another type
of a 360-virtual store would enhance the external validity of our find­
ings. Additionally, as our focus was on consumer attitudes stimulated by
the 360-virtual store visit, future studies could study consumer behavior
in a 360-virtual store. Individual-level differences in sensory perceptions
and experiences would also be an interesting avenue for future research,
as sensory cues are likely to evoke different responses in different in­
dividuals (Simmonds et al., 2020).
Finally, p-values have recently been the subject of much academic
debate (van Witteloostuijn, 2020; Wasserstein et al., 2019) with no clear
consensus among researchers on what constitutes the "correct" statistical
significance threshold (Pritschet et al., 2016). Traditionally p-values
have guided decisions in the null-hypothesis-testing approach (Fisher,
1955). For Fisher, the p-values of 0.049 and 0.051 did not seem that
N. Ruusunen et al. International Journal of Information Management 70 (2023) 102622

different in terms of inference and would not lead to radically different
conclusions (Gigerenzer, 2004). However, as the statistical significance
of the path regarding the autotelic need for touch in H2 marginally
exceeds the general threshold level of 0.05 with p = 0.052, we address
this by calling the result ‘marginally significant’.
6. Conclusion
Online shopping is evolving into an ambient experience and some
visionary practitioners already use 360-virtual stores to deliver their
offerings into the hands of the consumers. While 360-virtual shopping is
likely to represent the evolution of online shopping, our research pro­
vides insights into how the need for touch shapes the relationship be­
tween telepresence and consumer attitudes in 360-virtual stores, and
how imagination compensates the need for touch in virtual shopping.
Grounded on the theory of embodied cognition, the research model
combines telepresence, need for touch and imagination in understand­
ing consumer attitudes toward virtual shopping. This study of 900
consumers finds that imagination compensates for the need for touch in
a 360-virtual store, resulting in a more positive consumer attitude to­
wards virtual shopping. The study finds boundary conditions in how
imagination interacts with the utilitarian dimension of need for touch,
but not the hedonic dimension of need for touch. For practitioners, the
study provides suggestions on how to stimulate consumers’ haptic
imagination through interactive features and visual cues incorporated in
a 360-virtual store, with a focus on the functional characteristics of the
product while stimulating the imagination. A relatively easy way for
practitioners to stimulate consumers’ haptic imagination is to make it
possible for consumers to rotate products in a 360-virtual store.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Nino Ruusunen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Orig­
inal Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization Heli Hallikainen:
Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – Original
Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization Tommi Laukkanen:
Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Review & Editing, Project
administration, Funding acquisition.

Appendix A. Scale properties

Attitude (Grohmann, 2009)AVE: 0.856 CR: 0.947 α: 0.947 Std. β

1. Negative – Positive 0.944
2. Dislike – Like 0.929
3. Favorable – Unfavorable (reverse-coded) 0.901
Telepresence (Rose, Clark, Samouel and Hair, 2012)AVE: 0.686 CR: 0.896 α: 0.896
1. I forget about my immediate surroundings when I use a virtual store. 0.894
2. Using a virtual store often makes me forget where I am. 0.919
3. After using the virtual store, I feel like I’m returning to the “real world” after a journey. 0.762
4. Using the virtual store creates a new world for me, and this world suddenly disappears when I stop browsing. 0.720
Imagination (Johnson, 2014)AVE: 0.643 CR: 0.878 α: 0.877
1. I have a vivid imagination. 0.731
2. I enjoy flights of fantasy. 0.834
3. I love to daydream. 0.856
4. I like to get lost in thought. 0.782
Autotelic need for touch (Peck & Childers, 2003a)AVE: 0.774 CR: 0.954 α: 0.954
1. When walking through stores, I can’t help touching all kinds of products. 0.853
2. Touching products can be fun. 0.784
3. When browsing in stores, it is important for me to handle all kinds of products. 0.870
4. I like to touch products even if I have no intention of buying them. 0.899
5. When browsing in stores, I like to touch lots of products. 0.940
6. I find myself touching all kinds of products in stores. 0.925
Instrumental need for touch (Peck & Childers, 2003a)AVE: 0.620 CR: 0.907 α: 0.906
1. I place more trust in products that can be touched before purchasing them. 0.798
2. I feel more comfortable purchasing a product after physically examining it. 0.733
3. If I can’t touch a product in the store, I am reluctant to purchase the product. 0.782
4. I feel more confident making a purchase after touching a product. 0.848
5. The only way to make sure a product is worth buying is to actually touch it. 0.784
6. There are many products that I would only buy if I could handle them before purchase. 0.774

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