Can consumers\u2019 gamified, personalized, and engaging experiences with VR fashion apps increase in-app purchase intention by fulfilling needs?

Oiyan Lau,Chung-Wha Ki

doi:10.1186/s40691-021-00270-9

Abstract

While the development of virtual reality (VR) apps is trending among fashion retailers to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and promote consumers’ online shopping, less is understood about whether and the way these new VR apps increase consumers’ in-app purchase. This study was designed to address this issue by applying self-determination theory within the context of Taobao Life, a 3D avatar-based and game-featured virtual world on the Taobao app. Specifically, we investigated (1) whether the extent to which a VR fashion app provides consumers with a sense of gamified experience (H1: challenge, and H2: achievement), personalized experience (H3: avatar customization, and H4: avatar identification), and engaging experience (H5: social presence, and H6: social support) fulfills their competence, autonomy, and relatedness needs; (2) whether these intrinsic needs fulfill determine positive consumer behavioral intentions (H7: intention to continue to use VR apps, and H8: intention to make in-app purchase), and (3) whether the intention to continue to use VR apps leads to a positive in-app purchase intention (H9). We tested the above empirically by conducting an online survey via Dynata, and the dataset of 251 responses was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings of our research provide theoretical and practical implications that can be applied in the fashion retail business.

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping the retail landscape and has accelerated its pace of digital transformation
While virtual reality (VR) apps have emerged as one of the newest trends in the fashion retail business, less is understood about consumers’ perceptions of, and experiences with, these novel apps (Parker & Wang, 2016). This led us to an important question: do fashion retailers’ VR apps increase online sales, and if so, how? To generate a more specific and meaningful set of research questions, we review the literature on fashion mobile apps in greater detail in the section that follows, which helped us gain a clearer understanding of what has been explored versus underexplored in the literature
More recently, selfdetermination theory (SDT)’s concept of autonomous motivation has been shown to predict consumer behaviour better than its more established predictors (e.g., ‘attitude’, ‘subjective norms’, and/or ‘past behaviour’) (Gilal et al, 2018, 2019; Xi & Hamari, 2019). This study adopts this more recent stance and investigates (1) whether the extent to which a VR fashion app provides consumers with a sense of gamified experience (H1: challenge, and H2: achievement), personalized experience (H3: avatar customization, and H4: avatar identification), and engaging experience (H5: social presence, and H6: social support) fulfills their competence, autonomy, and relatedness needs; (2) whether these intrinsic needs fulfill determine positive consumer behavioral intentions (H7: intention to continue to use VR apps, and H8: in-app purchase intention), and (3) whether the intention to continue to use VR apps leads to a positive in-app purchase intention (H9)

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping the retail landscape and has accelerated its pace of digital transformation. One way to do so was by shifting their focus from conventional brick-and-mortar retail operations to mobile commerce (m-commerce) to increase online sales (Kohan, 2020). Examples of m-commerce include inapp purchasing (i.e., buying goods and services within an application on a mobile device), mobile banking, or using a digital wallet (e.g., Apple Pay or PayPal). Mobile apps had already made significant market inroads in the fashion retail business before the COVID-19 pandemic (Torok, 2020). The recent coronavirus crisis has supercharged them even further as fashion retailers look for ways to enhance consumer e-commerce connections. 40% of consumers who did not shop online previously have begun to use e-commerce channels during the pandemic and 26% expect to shop less at physical stores following COVID-19 (Barbiroglio, 2020). Experts forecast that by 2021, 53.9% of the annual retail e-commerce sales in the U.S will derive from m-commerce (Business Wire, 2018)

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Conclusion