The application of mobile fNIRS to “shopper neuroscience” – first insights from a merchandising communication study

Purpose: This study is the first to examine consumer’s neural reaction to different merchandising communication strategies at the point-of-sale (PoS) by applying functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). By doing so, the purpose of this study is to extend consumer neuroscience to retail and shopper research. Design/methodology/approach: Two experiments were conducted in which 36 shoppers were exposed to a realistic grocery shopping scenario while their brain haemodynamics were measured using mobile fNIRS. Findings: Results revealed that mobile fNIRS appears a valid method to study neural activation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the field of “shopper neuroscience”. More precisely, results demonstrated that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) might be crucial for processing and predicting merchandising communication strategy effectiveness. Research limitations/implications: This research gives evidence that certain regions of the PFC, in particular the OFC and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), are crucial to process and evaluate merchandising communication strategies. Practical implications: The current work opens a promising new avenue for studying and understanding shopper’s behaviour. Mobile fNIRS enables marketing management to collect neural data from shoppers and analyse neural activity associated with real-life settings. Furthermore, based on a better understanding of shoppers’ perceptual processes of communication strategies, marketers can design more effective merchandising communication strategies. Originality/value: The study is the first to implement the innovative, mobile neuroimaging method of fNIRS to a PoS setting. It, therefore, opens up the promising field of “shopper neuroscience”.