Virtual Reality Stores: Studies on Shopper Perceptions and Behaviors

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) has positioned itself as an extension of the world that we live in. VR applications have provided us with amplified and interactive environments that can simulate current real-world scenarios. This study examines prior literature on the study of shoppers' behavior across different VR simulated retail contexts to provide an overall view of the status of VR stores. The study shows that while VR offers many benefits in real world scenarios, there exists limited evidence that informs on questions pertaining to the external validity. That is, how can VR interactions be generalized to accurately represent shopper behaviors in this type of research setting. Therefore, there is a need to understand the application of VR tools in a holistic manner while conducting research studies that examine shopper behaviors. In this paper, we have explored VR marketing applications, which explicitly make comparisons between virtual simulated retail environments and their physical benchmark in food retail stores. Findings reveal that while VR experiments are still very much research in progress, they offer much potential in understanding shopper perceptions and shopping behaviors. This paper has provided rich insights on the current state-of-the-art research in virtual simulated retail environments and offers more directions for advancing this promising domain of research.