Social Interaction in Virtual Shopping

ABSTRACT

With the increasing popularity of e-commerce and the coronavirus situation, an increasing number of shoppers are opting for online shopping because of store closures and their fear of contracting the coronavirus in public. While conventional retail provides consumers with a full spectrum of interaction, online shopping has been deficient in these types of experiences. Therefore, the virtual reality technology is used to bridge the gap between the two shopping techniques and create a more natural and intuitive shopping environment. The aim of this research is to investigate how, in a virtual store environment, consumers' interaction affect their shopping experience. A virtual supermarket with the interaction facility was designed. An experiment was conducted to track the effect of the social interaction on the consumers using different metrics. The results showed that consumers' social interaction in the form of avatar-mediated communication has a beneficial impact on their social presence. It also demonstrates that consumers felt more immersed and socially engaged to the shopping environment via the social interaction among avatars.