Ai-Driven Smart Retail Analytics and Organic Food Consumer Behaviour: Decoding Purchase Decisions in Bengaluru's Phygital Marketplace

Resumen

The convergence of artificial intelligence with physical retail infrastructure commonly referred to as the 'phygital' marketplace is transforming the way urban Indian consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase organic food products. Bengaluru, a city uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology adoption and a health-conscious consumer base, offers an analytically rich setting to examine how smart retail tools such as personalised recommendation engines, AI-powered shelf analytics, digital loyalty platforms, and real-time nutritional transparency mechanisms influence the organic food purchase journey. Drawing on an integration of the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework and Digital Technology Acceptance theory, this study constructs and empirically validates a model that links four smart retail stimuli  Algorithmic Personalisation (AP), AI-Based Nutritional Transparency (NT), Digital Social Proof (DSP), and Smart Loyalty Engagement (SLE)  with Organic Purchase Intention (OPI) and Actual Purchase Behaviour (APB), with Consumer Cognitive Trust (CCT) and Emotional Engagement (EE) serving as organismic mediators.Primary data were gathered from 386 urban consumers in Bengaluru who regularly use at least one digital retail interface (mobile app, online grocery platform, or smart in-store kiosk) for organic food purchases. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) via AMOS 26.0 confirmed excellent model fit (χ²/df = 2.08, CFI = 0.967, RMSEA = 0.048). Algorithmic Personalisation emerged as the strongest predictor of purchase intention (β = 0.401, p < 0.001), followed by AI-Based Nutritional Transparency (β = 0.334, p < 0.001). Consumer Cognitive Trust fully mediated the effect of Nutritional Transparency on Actual Purchase Behaviour. The study provides novel insights for organic food brands, retail technology architects, and digital platform designers operating in India's fast-evolving phygital grocery ecosystem.