Limitations and Future Research
While this current study provides many meaningful findings, it is not immune from limitations. The findings of our two studies should be interpreted with caution because we used a convenience sample of college students. Although they are likely to be within the primary target audience for many AR-based product presentations, college students may be more open to something new and innovative than average consumers thereby causing less generalizable results. This means that because college students may be more likely to adopt new technologies compared to other age groups of consumers, external validity issues may arise. Also, our findings are limited to one particular media environment – personal computers – although many AR applications that have been introduced operate in mobile devices. For example, Snapchat introduced diverse AR-based filters that enable consumers to experience virtual products or places. Therefore, replicating the proposed model using a broader, more representative and truly random sample of subjects along with more diverse media contexts is strongly encouraged for future researchers. Examining other interesting variables would contribute to the existing literature. For example, timing of purchase would be important, as consumers who are about to purchase certain products may be more highly involved and more likely to employ more extensive and more readily accessible information sources. Constructs such as need for cognition or need for emotion may also be interesting to explore in that some consumers are more dependent on visualized information (i.e., visual learner) than on text-based information.
