What Deters Online Grocery Shopping? Investigating the Effect of Arithmetic Complexity and Product Type on User Satisfaction

This paper explores the influence of product type and arithmetic task complexity on users' perceived mental effort and satisfaction in the context of online grocery shopping. A two-factor within-subject experiment was conducted with 32 participants. Results show that experience products and complex arithmetic tasks are associated with higher perceived mental effort compared to search products and simple arithmetic tasks. Perceived mental effort and satisfaction are negatively related. The more cognitive effort users need to invest in their online shopping tasks, the less satisfied they are likely to be with their online experience. Our results suggest that cognitive absorption mediates the relationship between cognitive effort and satisfaction. The study contributes to our understanding of online grocery shopping by explaining the effect of arithmetic complexity and product type on user satisfaction. It also offers shopping website designers a way to improve consumers' online grocery shopping experience by implementing simple technology features in their websites to help users reduce their mental effort.