Luxury fashion brands in metaverse retailing – a review of literature and practice

Abstract

Purpose The purposes of this study are to identify the ways that luxury fashion brands can leverage in metaverse retailing, and give insights to practitioners in the fashion industry who are planning to launch metaverse retailing. Design/methodology/approach To offer a balanced view of available evidence, this study adopted a literature review approach and attempted to collect all existing academic journal articles on the issues related to metaverse retailing and luxury fashion brands. A comprehensive literature search was conducted in electronic databases Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, Pro Quest and Science Direct from January 2023 to April 2024. Based on the results of the research in literature, real-life examples of luxury fashion brands were used to explain the ways that luxury fashion brands in the metaverse retailing can be put into practice. Findings The findings have revealed that there are many ways that luxury fashion brands can leverage in the metaverse retailing. The fusion of metaverse-related technologies provides brands with a wide platform of choices that can create immersive, personalized marketing experiences for customers. Four roles of metaverse are identified: (1) enhance of immersive experience; (2) provide big data interface to smart decision-making; (3) form high-fidelity simulated space; and (4) maintenance economic system and making of identification. To further enhance the four roles of metaverse, four types of technologies and 15 components for metaverse can be adopted by luxury fashion brands. Research limitations/implications While this paper provides a literature review and real-life examples of luxury fashion brands in the metaverse retailing to explain the findings, further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of current efforts in the development of luxury fashion brands in the metaverse retailing through collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. Also, future studies may attempt to explore the challenges of investigating consumers in response to luxury fashion brands in the metaverse retailing. Practical implications The metaverse is turning imagination into reality through the integration of multiple technologies and is gaining momentum in tech. With technology leading the way, business leaders and brands must not only rethink retail but also bring immersive shopping experiences into the future. Metaverse has immense potential to transform the retail industry, thus the leading global and local firms must embrace innovation and new technologies, and prioritize “metaverse transformation” for their business. Based on the results of this study, some emerging practices pertaining to metaverse retailing are provided. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it would seem that this is the first work that conducts a literature review of the relevant academic journal articles addressed to the practitioners or managerial audiences in the area of luxury fashion industry who are concerned about the development of metaverse retailing. This paper identifies the ways that luxury fashion brands can leverage in the metaverse retailing and gives insights to practitioners in the luxury fashion industry who are planning to launch metaverse retailing.