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What is Virtual Shopping

Chapter 12
Handbook of Research on Digital Media and Advertising: User Generated Content Consumption
Virtual shopping is an online consumer shopping activity in a virtual world, where a shoppers’ avatar can see and interact with other avatar shoppers and salespersons while they are shopping in the digital replica of a real world brick-and-mortar store.
Published in Chapter:
Does Second Life Mark the Beginning of a New Era of Online Shopping?: Exploring the Avatar-Based Shopping Experience in Virtual Worlds
Jang Ho Moon (University of Texas at Austin, USA), Yongjun Sung (University of Texas at Austin, USA), and S. Marina Choi (University of Texas at Austin, USA)
Copyright: © 2011 |Pages: 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-792-8.ch012
Abstract
In this chapter, the authors explore the unique social dimension of shopping in virtual worlds, namely Second Life, by examining the role of avatar-based interactions in determining consumer shopping experience. To this end, an overview of Second Life, and other similar virtual worlds, is provided. This chapter then introduces the concept of social presence and offers a conceptual discussion of how avatar-based shopping in virtual environments is distinctive from shopping in other Web environments. Next, the authors present the preliminary findings of the ongoing research study investigating how consumers’ interactions with salespersons and peer consumers via avatars influence their shopping experience in Second Life. This chapter concludes with a future prospect of virtual worlds and directions for future research.
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