Augmented reality versus conventional interface: Is there any difference in effectiveness?

The moment immediately before the add to cart decision is very critical in online shopping. Drawing on theories of transfer, spreading activation and human-computer interaction, the superiority of markerless Augmented Reality (AR) and Marker-based augmented reality (M) over Conventional Interactive (CI) is hypothesized. Although those multimedia tools are not part of the product/brand motivating the consumer interest they interfere in the interactive performance of the ecommerce. 150 consumers in a lab experiment showed higher emotional response, interactive response and brand evaluation in M and AR than CI. Contrary to what was expected the usability results were the inverse. That is, usability of CI outperforms M and AR. Considering only AR and M interfaces their effect on psychological variables was not statistically significant. A sophisticated or a simple interface had no impact on intention to buy the target brand, but the brand recommendation improved from M to AR. The differing effect of those three interface systems was mediated by brand familiarity, perceived risk, opinion leadership and positive emotional traits.