Role of haptic touch in shopping

Abstract

Research on multisensory nature of consumption has highlighted importance of smell, taste, and touch during product evaluation and subsequent purchase decisions. However, there are very few studies in marketing which have examined role of touch in shopping. This paper builds the argument for conducting research on role of touch during shopping in Indian context and provides some methodological contribution for conducting such a research. The paper provides schema to differentiate products into categories of high, moderate, and low haptic salience based on consumer preferences and sensibilities. Furthermore, it revalidates the NFT scale in Indian context which can be used to differentiate consumers into high and low motivation to touch.