How to Engage Fashion Retail with Virtual Reality: A Consumer Perspective

Highly valued consumer experiences occur when designers understand how emerging technology—such as Virtual Reality—is presented in an emotionally engaging format. For fashion retailers to ensure longevity through new retail models, designers must understand how Virtual Reality can offer an exceptional retail experience. Our research addresses this question by interviewing 22 young professionals on attitudes towards Virtual Reality, motivation to shop through v-Commerce, and the moderating variables that influence virtual environment perceptions. Our results prove consumers expect a vivid shopping environment, with authentic product features instead of than more common simulated environment. We prove hedonically motivated consumers are more open to v-Commerce than utilitarian consumers, and Consumers aged 18–34 regard interactivity, personalisation, and social networking as critical to offering that a cost-efficiency shopping experience. This paper thus establishes the fundamental design rules for v-Commerce platforms, allowing designers to create effective retail environments, sympathetic to the consumer’s cognitive desires.