Abstract

The recent desire to apply virtual reality for e-commerce implies the need for a better understanding of this emerging medium as an approach for digitisation and marketing of product and brand. Though two-dimensional presentation media (e.g. text, images and videos) are frequently investigated in information systems research, few studies address how virtual reality can be utilised in presenting and selling products, as it only recently became affordable and accessible to consumers. Virtual reality is much more capable of enabling “presence”, the perceptual illusion of nonmediation or the feeling of being in the virtual environment instead of in the real world. This explorative study will investigate what characteristics of immersive virtual reality and its associated virtual space to digitally stimulate “presence”, and whether and how “presence” can affect online consumers’ impression of the e-retailer, interest generation and actual purchasing behaviour of products.

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