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Modern Consumerism and Retailing: The Metaverse Bound
Abstract
The emergence of consumerism has led to regulatory measures being integrated into business practices, but the influence of consumers in developing countries remains limited, resulting in businesses being less responsive. The digital retail landscape is undergoing a transformative revolution, driven by IR 4.0 technological advancements such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), wearables, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and blockchain technology. This development focuses on convenience, personalization and emotional connections. Companies are adapting to modern consumer behavior through various strategies, including online shopping, mobile commerce, data analytics, technology integration, user reviews and contactless payments. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this seismic shift in the retail industry, and online retail is expected to continue to grow post-pandemic, driven by these technologies. AI enhances the customer experience, wearables provide interactive engagement, VR offers immersive shopping, AR merges online and physical shopping, and blockchain ensures secure transactions in the emerging metaverse. As retail converges with the metaverse, the potential for borderless and personalized shopping experiences is enormous. Advances in VR technology could lead to interconnected virtual spaces that seamlessly connect physical and digital retail, providing immersive and personalized shopping experiences. However, challenges such as cost, learning curves, digital security, legal ambiguity, data privacy, financial risk and ethical considerations need to be addressed through vigilant and informed consumer engagement in this evolving digital landscape.
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This study analyzes the preferences and perceptions of consumers in e-marketplaces to design and guide sustainable business models based on economic, social, environmental, and technological dimensions. The results are based on a sample of 387 respondents to analyze the main reasons and benefits for using e-marketplaces, the preferences, and perceptions of consumers regarding sustainability dimensions in e-marketplaces, and the assessment of technological features of digital platforms. Using descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling (SEM), this study highlights the importance of e-marketplace business models and their customer-centric value propositions in effectively communicating and ensuring high levels of usability and stability in the digital platform. The findings underscore the importance of informing consumers about the benefits of participating in digital platforms, with particular emphasis on the technological and environmental dimensions, which emerged as the most influential factors in the development of a sustainable business model for e-marketplaces. However, the study also emphasizes the need not to overlook the economic and social dimensions, as they are crucial for maintaining a sustainable business model in the long run. In conclusion, this research provides valuable insights to guide e-marketplace business models towards sustainability based on the perspectives and contributions of consumers.
The pandemic affected more than 1.5 billion students and youth, and the most vulnerable learners were hit hardest, making digital inequality in educational settings impossible to overlook. Given this reality, we, all educators, came together to find ways to understand and address some of these inequalities. As a product of this collaboration, we propose a methodological toolkit: a theoretical kaleidoscope to examine and critique the constitutive elements and dimensions of digital inequalities. We argue that such a tool is helpful when a critical attitude to examine ‘the ideology of digitalism’, its concomitant inequalities, and the huge losses it entails for human flourishing seems urgent. In the paper, we describe different theoretical approaches that can be used for the kaleidoscope. We give relevant examples of each theory. We argue that the postdigital does not mean that the digital is over, rather that it has mutated into new power structures that are less evident but no less insidious as they continue to govern socio-technical infrastructures, geopolitics, and markets. In this sense, it is vital to find tools that allow us to shed light on such invisible and pervasive power structures and the consequences in the daily lives of so many.
Social media data are transforming sustainability science. However, challenges from restrictions in data accessibility and ethical concerns regarding potential data misuse have threatened this nascent field. Here, we review the literature on the use of social media data in environmental and sustainability research. We find that they can play a novel and irreplaceable role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals by allowing a nuanced understanding of human-nature interactions at scale, observing the dynamics of social ecological change, and investigating the co-construction of nature values. We reveal threats to data access and highlight scientific responsibility to address trade-offs between research transparency and privacy protection, while promoting inclusivity. This contributes to a wider societal debate of social media data for sustainability science and for the common good.
Augmented reality (AR) solutions help facilitate consumers' direct examinations, enhancing their shopping experiences in the digital commerce context. This study examines consumer responses to AR in mobile shopping. It investigates the relationships among perceived media richness, interactivity, telepresence, utilitarian and hedonic values, and behavioral intentions. Furthermore, it explores whether these relationships differ depending on consumers’ perceived task complexity. A total of 279 mobile application users participated in the online survey. The participants were guided to answer an online questionnaire after utilizing an AR mobile application to purchase a jewelry product. The findings reveal that media richness and interactivity positively influence telepresence, and telepresence increases behavioral intentions through perceived utilitarian and hedonic values. The effect of interactivity on telepresence and the impact of telepresence on utilitarian value are higher for consumers with low task complexity perception. By contrast, the impact of telepresence on hedonic value is higher for consumers with high task complexity perception. The results suggest practical implications for mobile retailers that apply advanced AR technology in retailing.
Since Facebook officially changed its name to Meta in Oct. 2021, the metaverse has become a new norm of social networks and three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds. The metaverse aims to bring 3D immersive and personalized experiences to users by leveraging many pertinent technologies. Despite great attention and benefits, a natural question in the metaverse is how to secure its users' digital content and data. In this regard, blockchain is a promising solution owing to its distinct features of decentralization, immutability, and transparency. To better understand the role of blockchain in the metaverse, we aim to provide an extensive survey on the applications of blockchain for the metaverse. We first present a preliminary to blockchain and the metaverse and highlight the motivations behind the use of blockchain for the metaverse. Next, we extensively discuss blockchain-based methods for the metaverse from technical perspectives, such as data acquisition, data storage, data sharing, data interoperability, and data privacy preservation. For each perspective, we first discuss the technical challenges of the metaverse and then highlight how blockchain can help. Moreover, we investigate the impact of blockchain on key-enabling technologies in the metaverse, including Internet-of-Things, digital twins, multi-sensory and immersive applications, artificial intelligence, and big data. We also present some major projects to showcase the role of blockchain in metaverse applications and services. Finally, we present some promising directions to drive further research innovations and developments towards the use of blockchain in the metaverse in the future.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine diverse risks and barriers that influence customers' attitude leading to their actual use of wearable devices in India. This study used technological literacy as a moderating variable to understand the relationship between barriers and attitudes toward adoption of wearable device.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey questionnaire was developed through focused group discussions with field experts. Data were collected through online as well as offline modes. A Google form was created and its weblink was shared with the respondents using wearable devices. Both online as well as offline modes were used for data collection. Several reminders through telephone and revisits were undertaken to approach the respondents.
Findings
The results of this study indicated that psychological risk and financial risk emerged strongest barriers of wearable technologies. This was followed by infrastructure barriers and performance risk. The strength of the relationship between technological anxiety and attitudes was lower but still significant. Surprisingly, privacy risk and social risk were not statistically significant. This study also validated the impact of technological literacy as a moderator between risks and attitudes.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the research by validating numerous risks and barriers in the adoption of wearable devices. This study not only offers a novel perspective on researching diverse barriers but also elucidates the moderating role of technological literacy which has not been covered in extant literature.
Metaverse is posed to change the world and revolutionalize the way we work, play, and socialize with one another. In recent years, both capital circles and large technology companies have started to pay attention to this emerging field, setting off a wave of metaverse upsurge. The academic world can and should also contribute to the development and evolution of metaverse. In this paper, we put forward a technology framework of metaverse from a macro perspective to discuss technical support for realizing the vision of large-scale and massive human-computer interaction in metaverse. We trace the latest technology and related applications that enable the development of metaverse. We also compare them with the proposed technical framework to determine the current gaps, which point out the direction for further research in the future.KeywordsMetaverseVirtual worldTechnology frameworkHuman-computer interaction
The concept of a ‘business model’ refers to a collection of descriptions that highlight the most significant aspects of the business. The metaverse is already a reality that can be considered plausible; it is a digital world that can be accessed by various technologies, such as virtual or augmented reality, and it is a place in which people are able to communicate and collaborate with one another. Businesses are making an attempt to capitalize on a trend, since it is anticipated that the metaverse will become more decentralized in the near future because it provides outstanding possibilities for expanding business. In this article, we discuss a few aspects of the current business model, as well as the emergence of the metaverse and their influence in the existing business models, with emphasis on the fashion and retail industry. Users of the metaverse have the ability to personalize digital representations of themselves, known as avatars. These avatars may be utilized in virtual worlds, online games, and other types of online communities. The way advertising works in the metaverse is quite similar to how it operates in the real world. Because of this, there is a promising future in store for the future of marketing and advertising in the metaverse. The new virtual environment will inspire us to devise novel formulae and procedures, which will influence the user in previously unimaginable ways. In addition to that, the possibility of the metaverse becoming connected with generation Z (also known as gen Z) would be additional advantages that will help the company’s bottom line in the decades to come.
This study focuses on the effects of user interfaces in mobile commerce (m-commerce) on the perceived ease of use and related consumer behaviors when controlled for environmental conditions (sunshine, humidity, and brightness). Effects were tested in real-time contexts (outdoor m-commerce). Specifically, three key design attributes related to commercial website interfaces were examined using a full factorial plan (222): color contrast, layout, and font type. A website selling music CDs was created for the experiment. Data were collected through an online questionnaire (n=560) to investigate potential direct and interaction effects of these interface attributes. The results show that an m-commerce website with a positive color contrast (light text on a dark background) and airy line spacing with a sans-serif font (Arial) is perceived as easier to use when engaged in outdoor m-commerce. This combination of interface attributes is associated with higher intentions to purchase as well as an increase in revisits and recommendations of the website. The implications for both m-commerce research and practice are discussed.
The metaverse has the potential to extend the physical world using augmented and virtual reality technologies allowing users to seamlessly interact within real and simulated environments using avatars and holograms. Virtual environments and immersive games (such as, Second Life, Fortnite, Roblox and VRChat) have been described as antecedents of the metaverse and offer some insight to the potential socio-economic impact of a fully functional persistent cross platform metaverse. Separating the hype and “meta…” rebranding from current reality is difficult, as “big tech” paints a picture of the transformative nature of the metaverse and how it will positively impact people in their work, leisure, and social interaction. The potential impact on the way we conduct business, interact with brands and others, and develop shared experiences is likely to be transformational as the distinct lines between physical and digital are likely to be somewhat blurred from current perceptions. However, although the technology and infrastructure does not yet exist to allow the development of new immersive virtual worlds at scale - one that our avatars could transcend across platforms, researchers are increasingly examining the transformative impact of the metaverse. Impacted sectors include marketing, education, healthcare as well as societal effects relating to social interaction factors from widespread adoption, and issues relating to trust, privacy, bias, disinformation, application of law as well as psychological aspects linked to addiction and impact on vulnerable people. This study examines these topics in detail by combining the informed narrative and multi-perspective approach from experts with varied disciplinary backgrounds on many aspects of the metaverse and its transformational impact. The paper concludes by proposing a future research agenda that is valuable for researchers, professionals and policy makers alike.
The focus on Millennials is progressively turning to Centennials, their successors. The topic of the most recent generational cohort is a prominent topic in recent studies, especially among advertisers and employers. Such research might also be beneficial in the field of education. Centennials, as the newest generation of students, must be understood by educational institutions because of their special nature, which stems from the fact that they grew up in an ecology where the Internet and other technologies already exist. This unique cohort of learners, often known as Generation Z and by different monikers, has already displaced Millennials in schools. This conceptual paper discusses Centennials' (1) personalities; (2) learning styles and educational views; and (3) Internet, digital, and social media usage. In addition, the purpose of this research is to assist educators and administrators in proactively adapting their pedagogy and processes to suit the demands of this new generation of students.
As the latest buzzword, Metaverse has attracted great attention from both industry and academia. Metaverse seamlessly integrates the real world with the virtual world and allows avatars to carry out rich activities including creation, display, entertainment, social networking, and trading. Thus, it is promising to build an exciting digital world and transform a better physical world through the exploration of the metaverse. In this survey, we dive into the metaverse by discussing how Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI) fuse with it by investigating the most related studies across the metaverse components, digital currencies, AI technologies, and applications in the virtual world, and blockchain-empowered technologies. Further exploitation and interdisciplinary research on the fusion of AI and Blockchain towards the metaverse will definitely require collaboration from both academia and industries. We wish that our survey can help researchers, engineers, and educators build an open, fair, and rational future metaverse.
This study investigated the impact of online product reviews on consumers purchasing decisions by using eye-tracking. The research methodology involved (i) development of a conceptual framework of online product review and purchasing intention through the moderation role of gender and visual attention in comments, and (ii) empirical investigation into the region of interest (ROI) analysis of consumers fixation during the purchase decision process and behavioral analysis. The results showed that consumers’ attention to negative comments was significantly greater than that to positive comments, especially for female consumers. Furthermore, the study identified a significant correlation between the visual browsing behavior of consumers and their purchase intention. It also found that consumers were not able to identify false comments. The current study provides a deep understanding of the underlying mechanism of how online reviews influence shopping behavior, reveals the effect of gender on this effect for the first time and explains it from the perspective of attentional bias, which is essential for the theory of online consumer behavior. Specifically, the different effects of consumers’ attention to negative comments seem to be moderated through gender with female consumers’ attention to negative comments being significantly greater than to positive ones. These findings suggest that practitioners need to pay particular attention to negative comments and resolve them promptly through the customization of product/service information, taking into consideration consumer characteristics, including gender.
Microtransactions are a relatively new feature of video game software involving the purchase of in-game items, often using real money. Players may use these transactions to purchase in-game advantages, or cosmetic features such as ‘skins’, which change the way a player’s avatar looks without influencing gameplay mechanics. Skins may be an opportunity for developers to offer – and players to purchase – alternative demographic appearances. In this article we examine some of the potential costs associated with skins beyond their price tag, especially those felt by players of color, given a normative – free – white default. While previous research has looked at player identity, representation in gaming media and players’ purchasing practices individually, few scholars have looked at the intersection between all three. We analyze this intersection within the practices of selling and purchasing skins in games. We distributed a survey through social media and to gaming communities online and analyzed 158 responses. We identify quantitative differences in responses of participants of color and White participants, such as participants of color spending more on average than white participants on skins in the games they play. We discuss qualitative themes we describe as quasi-acceptance and privileged allyship, that build on previous literature about how players of color interact with – and may feel resigned about – representation in games.
Educational games are generally perceived as less interesting and engaging as compared to entertainment or video games. The stigma of having created for entertainment purposes is hindering teachers or lecturers from using educational games in formal educational contexts. Hence, there is a need to learn from experienced and successful video game designers in order to make educational games engaging, particularly on providing game players the immersive user experience (UX) through an emotional context. This study was conducted to examine the attitude, experiences and understanding of prominent game designers in the Southeast Asia region on the concept, definitions and elements of UX when designing immersive games. The designers were interviewed and the recordings were transcribed on verbatim basis to allow coding for narration. The outputs of the narration were mapped on to an emotional context, specifically for designing immersive educational games. The findings revealed that the primary factor of UX is the crafting of players’ emotion. Two trustworthy strategies for crafting good UX are giving players the opportunity to be actively involved in the game narrative structure by having an enhanced identification with the avatars they control; and allowing players to make decisions that seemingly make differences and experience a range of emotions as part of the character in the game world. In conclusion, to remove the stigma of educational games, teachers and lecturers should craft students’ emotion by offering roles to play in the narrative structure of educational games; while prompting decision making scenarios in the game world.
Information technologies exist to enable us to either do things we have not done before or do familiar things more efficiently. Metaverse (i.e. extended reality: XR) enables novel forms of engrossing telepresence, but it also may make mundate tasks more effortless. Such technologies increasingly facilitate our work, education, healthcare, consumption and entertainment; however, at the same time, metaverse bring a host of challenges. Therefore, we pose the question whether XR technologies, specifically Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), either increase or decrease the difficulties of carrying out everyday tasks. In the current study we conducted a 2 (AR: with vs. without) × 2 (VR: with vs. without) between-subject experiment where participants faced a shopping-related task (including navigating, movement, hand-interaction, information processing, information searching, storing, decision making, and simple calculation) to examine a proposed series of hypotheses. The NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) was used to measure subjective workload when using an XR-mediated information system including six sub-dimensions of frustration, performance, effort, physical, mental, and temporal demand . The findings indicate that AR was significantly associated with overall workload, especially mental demand and effort, while VR had no significant effect on any workload sub-dimensions. There was a significant interaction effect between AR and VR on physical demand, effort, and overall workload. The results imply that the resources and cost of operating XR-mediated realities are different and higher than physical reality.
Augmented reality presents numerous opportunities and challenges for marketers to enrich the retail shopping experience. Although the technology is well established, practical marketing applications are rare, and the existing literature is unstructured. We conduct a systematic literature review with the goal of synthesizing the latest developments in the field and developing research propositions. We analyze 91 papers and identify four major enablers of AR in retail marketing: enhancement of the consumer experience, improvement of the customer-brand relationship, support of marketing activities, and promotion of marketing competitiveness. The challenges of AR adoption in marketing include technical limitations , consumer-oriented challenges, technological immaturity, and organizational challenges.
Virtual reality (VR) refers to technologies for substituting the perceived reality. With the recent proliferation of consumer-grade head-mounted VR displays, several industries have started to wake up to the possible potential of virtual reality. One typical area in the early stages of the adoption of these technologies is marketing, and especially its sub-areas of retail and shopping. However, there has been a dearth in our understanding of how VR technology has been investigated in retail-related literature. This study systematically reviewed a body of 72 research papers that investigated the application of VR in shopping. The corpus was reviewed for covered research methods, theories, investigated output and input devices, tracking technologies, products and simulated environments, antecedents and consequences. Based on experiment-based studies in the corpus, we assessed the effects of VR and related stimuli on consumer psychology and behavior in the context of shopping. Based on the review, we propose 16 future research avenues pertaining to concepts, themes, methodologies and technologies.
The aim of this study is to identify the practical benefits and associated risks generated by the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in retail and capitalize on the results by developing a conceptual framework for integrating AI technologies in the information systems of retail companies. To this end, a systematic study of recent literature was conducted by carefully examining the topic of AI implementations. The main results of the documentation were used to substantiate the conceptual framework introduced by the paper. The research revealed a variety of advanced solutions, benefits, but also risks that AI generates in retail, in different segments of the value chain, abbreviated CECoR, from improving the customer experience (Customer Experience, CE) with the help of virtual agents (chatbots, virtual assistants, etc.), to cost reductions (Cost, Co) by using smart shelves, and to increasing revenues (Revenue, R) due to product recommendations and personalized offers or discounts. The proposed conceptual framework is focused on customer profiles and includes recommendations on AI implementations in a retail company, from the perspective of CECoR drivers. The results of the research can be capitalized by practitioners and researchers in the field, who are presented with concrete examples of benefits, challenges, and risks generated by AI technologies. The CECoR framework could be a useful tool for both retail and AI specialists, providing common and clear guidelines for initiating and overseeing projects for integrating AI in a company’s information systems. Literature-based CECoR analysis dimensions have allowed the restriction of the research area, which is particularly wide, at the confluence of retail and AI. The originality of the article lies in the CECoR orientation of the research and the conceptual framework focused on customer profiling. Keywords: artificial intelligence, retail, customer experience, cost reduction, revenue increase, CECoR conceptual framework.
(2) (PDF) The Integration of Artificial Intelligence in Retail: Benefits, Challenges and a Dedicated Conceptual Framework. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349167313_The_Integration_of_Artificial_Intelligence_in_Retail_Benefits_Challenges_and_a_Dedicated_Conceptual_Framework#fullTextFileContent
The use of the internet and social media have changed consumer behavior and the ways in which companies conduct their business. Social and digital marketing offers significant opportunities to organizations through lower costs, improved brand awareness and increased sales. However, significant challenges exist from negative electronic word-of-mouth as well as intrusive and irritating online brand presence. This article brings together the collective insight from several leading experts on issues relating to digital and social media marketing. The experts’ perspectives offer a detailed narrative on key aspects of this important topic as well as perspectives on more specific issues including artificial intelligence, augmented reality marketing, digital content management, mobile marketing and advertising, B2B marketing, electronic word of mouth and ethical issues therein. This research offers a significant and timely contribution to both researchers and practitioners in the form of challenges and opportunities where we highlight the limitations within the current research, outline the research gaps and develop the questions and propositions that can help advance knowledge within the domain of digital and social marketing.
The Green Economy is an alternative vision for growth and development; one that can generate economic development and improvements in people's lives in ways consistent with advancing also environmental and social well-being. One significant component of a green economy strategy is to promote the development and adoption of sustainable technologies. The overall objective of this article is to discuss a number of challenges encountered when pursuing sustainable technological change, and that need to be properly understood by policy makers and professionals at different levels in society. We also identify some avenues for future research. The discussions center on five challenges: (a) dealing with diffuse-and ever more global-environmental risks; (b) achieving radical and not just incremental sustainable technological change; (c) green capitalism and the uncertain business-as-usual scenario; (d) the role of the state and designing appropriate policy mixes; and (e) dealing with distributional concerns and impacts. The article argues that sustainable technological change will require a re-assessment of the roles of the private industry and the state, respectively, and that future research should increasingly address the challenges of identifying and implementing novel policy instrument combinations in various institutional contexts.
Social media allows people to freely interact with others and offers multiple ways for marketers to reach and engage with consumers. Considering the numerous ways social media affects individuals and businesses alike, in this article, the authors focus on where they believe the future of social media lies when considering marketing-related topics and issues. Drawing on academic research, discussions with industry leaders, and popular discourse, the authors identify nine themes, organized by predicted imminence (i.e., the immediate, near, and far futures), that they believe will meaningfully shape the future of social media through three lenses: consumer, industry, and public policy. Within each theme, the authors describe the digital landscape, present and discuss their predictions, and identify relevant future research directions for academics and practitioners.
Subscription commerce emerged as an up-and-coming phenomenon in retailing that enables shoppers to automatically receive recurring deliveries of consumer goods. One important dimension along which subscription services differ is the degree to which the content of each delivery is surprising. This paper focuses on two archetypes at opposite ends of this dimension, namely predefined and curated surprise subscriptions, and juxtaposes them to conceptualize surprise as a retail mechanism. It is hypothesized that curated surprise subscriptions carry an inherent risk to receive unappealing products, as consumers outsource the decision-making process to the subscription provider, which can influence consumers’ choices and attitudes. Three studies explore the role of risk perception in consumers’ evaluation of consumer goods subscriptions. First, it was found that consumers prefer shorter delivery intervals for predefined subscriptions and longer delivery intervals for curated surprise subscriptions, in line with Prospect Theory. Second, empirical evidence for perceived risk as a mediating variable in this relation is provided. Finally, it is shown how retailers can manipulate associated risk through the introduction of a free-return option. The article is concluded by introducing a new typology of subscription services and discussing implications for managerial practice as well as avenues for future research.
Purpose
Online shopping has continued to grow in popularity, and the advance of internet technology has enhanced customers’ experiences. One technology online retailers have been using to increase sales is virtual try-on (VTO). The purpose of this paper is to investigate how such technology affects online consumers’ purchase decision process towards purchase intention, especially from an integration of utilitarian, hedonic and risk perspectives, by using advanced partial least square (PLS) approaches.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applied a web-based survey approach for data collection from online apparel retailing websites. The survey instrument was developed by adapting previously validated measurement items. The valid data collected were analysed using PLS with multi-group analyses. Advanced PLS techniques such as examination of discriminant validity using heterotrait-monotrait ratio, tests of out-of-sample prediction performance, and measurement invariance of composite models were applied.
Findings
The results of examining the proposed model reveal that customers’ attitude towards VTO technology can affect their intention to purchase a garment online, which is affected by perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and perceived privacy risk. Perceived ease of use is found to affect perceived usefulness and perceived helpfulness. The results also show no significant differences among age groups and genders in terms of the role of VTO technology in the full decision process towards online purchase intention.
Originality/value
This study enhances the understanding of the roles that VTO technology plays in consumers’ online purchase intention by providing an integrative view of its utilitarian value, hedonic value and risk. This study demonstrates the feasibility of applying advanced PLS techniques to investigate online consumer behaviour, particularly in the field of VTO application in online retailing. Implications for online retailers and designers of VTO technology are also derived from the findings.
Consumers have traditionally made purchase decisions at the store shelf, giving institutional brick-and-mortar retailers great power to learn about and influence behaviors and preferences. With the rise of e-commerce, mobile shopping, and most recently smart technologies, new competitors threaten this long-standing supremacy. Adopting a value-creation perspective, we analyze how digitization started the erosion of institutional retailing as the primary interface to the customer. We develop a framework that identifies five new sources of value creation and propose how these advance and transform competition for this interface. Depending on the importance of the new sources of value creation (in different purchase situations), stationary retailing may prevail as an important interaction point in a multichannel decision journey. However, increasing diffusion of branded-product platforms including connected devices and online retail platforms is shifting this authority to new players. For the parties involved in this multilayered competition, acknowledging the changes and actively managing their position in the evolving eco-systems is crucial.
The rapid growth in e-commerce witnesses the emergence of a new group of consumers known as e-consumers. This new group of consumers is increasing in number over the years as online shopping become a trend and a manifestation of the modern life style. However a distance and complex nature of online shopping has led to some new problems and challenges pertaining to consumer protection. One of the perennial problems that needs considerable attention is the adequacy of the existing legislation in Malaysia to meet the basic needs of online consumers. Even though the Consumer Protection Act 1999 (CPA) was amended in 2007 in order to protect the interests of e-consumers, the question remains as to how far the CPA and other existing legislation, namely the Contracts Act 1950, Sale of Goods Act 1957, Direct Sales and Anti-Pyramid Scheme Act 1993 and Electronics Commerce Act 2006 can protect e-consumers in sale of goods contracts. Therefore, this paper is tasked to generally analyze the existing Malaysian law on sale of goods and to determine the extent to which those laws are adequate in providing protection and preserving the interests of e-consumers in order to overcome their anxieties as well as building up their confidence in purchasing goods online.
When one looks at the marketing literature, consumerism activity is treated as a developed country phenomenon. The reason for this is partially attributable to a complete lack of appropriate conceptual and methodological frameworks to study consumerism issues across cultures and nations, specifically in less-developed countries. The purpose of this article is to develop working propositions to study consumerism in multiple environments. Consumerism issues in developed versus LDC environments are discussed and their implications for international trade and marketing are elucidated. The influences that various socio-economic, governmental and cultural environments have upon consumerism are also examined.
Retailers, such as Starbucks and Victoria's Secret, aim to provide customers a great experience across channels. In this paper we provide an overview of the existing literature on customer experience and expand on it to examine the creation of a customer experience from a holistic perspective. We propose a conceptual model, in which we discuss the determinants of customer experience. We explicitly take a dynamic view, in which we argue that prior customer experiences will influence future customer experiences. We discuss the importance of the social environment, self-service technologies and the store brand. Customer experience management is also approached from a strategic perspective by focusing on issues such as how and to what extent an experience-based business can create growth. In each of these areas, we identify and discuss important issues worthy of further research.
This chapter delves into the intersection of ethics and big data, with a primary focus on the ethical concerns arising from AI. The primary objective of this chapter is to highlight a novel approach that researchers might employ throughout the process of conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) to enhance efficiency and reduce costs associated with data synthesis and abstraction. Further, the conclusion emphasizes the need to navigate the intersection of ethics and big data, particularly concerning AI, presents a complex landscape of ethical concerns.
There has been a consensus amongst serious games advocates about the effectiveness of serious games in improving learning. This provides the basis for the assumption that its role and value in education is undeniable. The interest in using serious games in education has been gaining attention and momentum over the last decade or so as many believe that digital games can be a powerful tool to assist the teaching and learning process due to its highly engaging, motivating and interactive nature. This alone provides many advantages over traditional education methods. While there is no dispute that serious games in education is generally a valid tool in the approach to teaching, the question remains; are all of them genuinely effective as an educational tool in comparison with traditional education methods and what would be a methodology for obtaining that crucial data. As researchers and educators, we cannot just rely on test validities to gauge the effectiveness of a game-based application as this merely measures that product as an indicator of performance within the application but rather an experimental validity study as a criterion of its effectiveness in order to validate the causal relation between the serious games educational application and the actual process learning. The very fact that most serious games educational applications are not validated on the premise that it makes a difference on the outcome of education as compared to other non-digital means creates an assumption that is may not be as effective as postulated. The aim of this paper is to explore the need and effectives methods for a standardized form of educational serious games validation. Introduction Technology has evolved more in the past two decades than any time in the previous century and while digital games have once been thought as pure entertainment, our reliance on digital technology has played a key role in shaping how we do business, communicate and in the last decade how we approach the shaping of education tools. As a result of growing up exposed to this ubiquitous digital environment and the pervasive and invasive nature of it, the current generation's minds have literally been rewired (Prensky, M. 2001) particularly in the area of learning.
In recent years, the concept of the Metaverse has attracted considerable attention. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the Metaverse. First, the development status of the Metaverse is presented. We summarize the policies of various countries, companies, and organizations relevant to the Metaverse, as well as statistics on the number of Metaverse-related publications. Characteristics of the Metaverse are identified: 1) multi-technology convergence; 2) sociality; 3) hyper-spatio-temporality. For the multi-technology convergence of the Metaverse, we divide the technological framework of the Metaverse into five dimensions. For the sociality of the Metaverse, we focus on the Metaverse as a virtual social world. Regarding the characteristic of hyper-spatio-temporality, we introduce the Metaverse as an open, immersive, and interactive 3D virtual world which can break through the constraints of time and space in the real world. The challenges of the Metaverse are also discussed.
Due to rapid technological developments, the metaverse is quickly garnering attention from all areas of retailing. With a projected market of $800 billion by 2024, the metaverse is expected to radically reshape retailing in the digital world. However, very little is known about the metaverse from a customer, retailer, or brand perspective. This article summarizes how the metaverse has been conceptualized thus far in the literature and the popular press. The authors offer a new conceptualization of the metaverse that contains four distinct dimensions: online collaboration, high consumer immersion, unique digital assets, and digital personas. Considering that the technologies currently used to provide high consumer immersion (e.g., augmented reality, virtual reality) and unique digital assets (e.g., blockchain technology) are not fully developed or commercialized, the authors also propose the concept of a transitory metaverse to understand the current stage of metaverse development better. The authors conclude by providing 27 directions for future research based on a full factorial of how the metaverse dimensions amplify three customer touchpoints in the digital experience (digital economic exchange, complex social relationships, direct environment interaction) for the three main stakeholders of any retailing exchange (consumers, retailers, brands) along the entire customer journey (pre-purchase, purchase, post-purchase).
Purpose
To develop compelling augmented reality (AR) experiences, this paper aims to examine AR value to physical fashion retail, defines the most effective form (e.g. app vs magic mirror) and assesses AR’s impact on consumer behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
This study comprises two phases. Phase one conducted three co-design workshops with 15 participants (aged 18–34) to evaluate current shopping modes and discover design opportunities. Phase two designed two AR prototypes (AR Branded App and Magic Mirror) and evaluated the prototypes through experience prototype experiments with 42 participants.
Findings
Participants have a positive attitude towards AR shopping adoption, improving consumer satisfaction and boosting purchase intention. AR technology can be the value in enjoyment to make the shopping experience more fun. However, no participants thought entertainment would trigger their intention to use AR. Therefore, designing useful AR apps that provide substantial functional benefits with enjoyment-oriented elements will encourage consumers to engage in high-street physical retail. In this way, consumers can interact with products and receive more information. AR can help luxury brands tell a story from a hedonic perspective, enabling consumers to engage with the story while maintaining human interaction to ensure an elevated level of service quality.
Originality/value
This study devises six design requirements to guide innovators and retailers in creating AR retail environments that satisfy their customer’s desires.
Due to the pandemic, most of the personal transactions relating to finance, commerce and healthcare services have gone online making privacy preservation a critical requirement. Consequently, privacy has been made a critical parameter in Data Protection Regulations leading to the search for such a privacy compliant system which is also resilient to attacks. A detailed analysis of the Blockchain technology, which is becoming popular for secure applications in the finance sector, indicates that there are several challenges relating to user identity, transaction linkability, crypto-keys management, data privacy, usability, interoperability, and post- quantum compliance of privacy regulations which need to be resolved before its widespread adoption. Being a decentralised system, there is a need to analyse the vulnerability to attacks of each layer in the Blockchain architecture. This paper discusses the development flow of some of the privacy enhancement mechanisms like ZKPs, SMPC, Ring signatures, Mixing, Homomorphic Encryption and quantum resilient computing, bringing out their features and lacunae. There is a detailed discussion of the privacy mechanisms adopted by blockchain platforms like ZCash, Zerocoin, Hyperledger, Wanchain, Coin Party, Monero, Cryptomate, MixCoin, Coinshuffle, PICNIC and New Hope. Every platform has some limitation or the other and it is essential that researchers come out with mitigation steps for the existing mechanisms and come up with improved new Privacy Enhancement Techniques. One such architecture using PET has been proposed.
Leading luxury brands have incorporated technologies to recreate brand images and reinvent consumer experience. The fashion industry is experiencing a historic transformation thanks to emerging technologies such as blockchain and non‐fungible tokens (NFTs) along with impactful technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and virtual reality (VR). With metaverse as a new social platform around the corner, academics and industry alike are querying how these new technologies might reshape luxury brands, reinvent consumer experience, and alter consumer behavior. This research charts new academic territory by investigating how newly evolved technologies affect the fashion industry. With practical examples of luxury brands, this article has theorized the irreversible trend of digital fashion: the attraction of NFT collectibles. It then proposes intriguing questions for scholars and practitioners to ponder, such as will young consumers, essentially living online, buy more fashion products in the digital world than in the real world? How can the fashion industry strategize for the coexistence of digital collections and physical goods?
The proliferation of digital goods has led to an increased interest in how the digitization of products and services affects consumer behavior. In this paper, the authors show that although consumers are willing to pay more for physical than digital goods, this difference attenuates—and even reverses—when consumers are asked to make a choice between the two product formats. This effect is explained by a contingent weighting principle: In willingness to pay, a quantitative task, consumers anchor on quantitative information (e.g., market beliefs). On the other hand, in choice, a qualitative task, consumers anchor on qualitative information (e.g., which good dominates on the most important attribute). These differences in contingent weighting result in physical goods being preferred in willingness to pay, but their digital equivalent being preferred relatively more in choice. The authors draw conclusions from ten pre-registered experiments and six supplemental studies using a variety of goods in hypothetical and incentive-compatible contexts, as well as within- and between-subjects designs. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications for the marketing of digital goods.
The rise of Augmented Reality (AR) technology presents marketers with promising opportunities to engage customers and transform their brand experience. While firms are keen to invest in AR, research documenting its tangible impact in real-world contexts is sparse. In this article, the authors outline four broad uses of the technology in retail settings. Next, they focus specifically on the use of AR to facilitate product evaluation prior to purchase, and empirically investigate its impact on sales in online retail. Using data obtained from an international cosmetics retailer, they find that AR usage on the retailer’s mobile app is associated with higher sales for brands that are less popular, products with narrower appeal, and products that are more expensive. In addition, the effect of AR is stronger for customers who are new to the online channel or product category, suggesting that the sales increase is coming from online channel adoption and category expansion. These findings provide converging evidence that AR is most effective when product-related uncertainty is high, demonstrating the technology’s potential to increase sales by reducing uncertainty and instilling purchase confidence. To encourage more impactful research in this area, the authors conclude with a research agenda for AR in marketing.
Retailing is undergoing a remarkable transformation brought by recent advances in technology. In this paper, we provide a deep discussion of and look ahead on how technology is changing retail, starting with a classification of technologies that impact retailing, in particular, in the COVID-19 and beyond world. We discuss different theoretical frameworks or lenses to better understand the role of technology in retailing. We identify and elaborate on the drivers and outcomes of technology adoption by shoppers, retailers, employees, and suppliers. We speculate on future retail scenarios and outline future research avenues on technology and retailing. We close by concluding that technology is not only reshaping retailing, but also allowing retailing to pivot in the face of new and unforeseen circumstances.
Educational games are often described as a balancing act between the entertainment aspects of video games—be it the engagement, motivational, or immersive advantages of it—and the serious subject matter of teaching, learning, and assessment. Thus the key challenge of game-based learning is how the merging of these two aspects could assist in the knowledge retention and application of the subject matters within the real-world environment, especially in the realm of education. The chapter proposes a validation framework that can link elements of learning and assessment in a subject matter to play experience in educational games before those games are developed. The framework will allow game designers and developers to understand the cognitive processes of learning, not only in designing effective educational games, but also to comprehend the intricacies and connections between learning and principles of game design. This in turn enables game researchers to develop effective educational games which are pedagogically and ludologically sound.
Campbell explains how the failure to explain the new propensity to consume that facilitated the consumer revolution is due to the absence of a theory of modern consumer behaviour, as all existing theories are distinctly ahistorical. What distinguishes modern from traditional consumer behaviour is the ability of modern consumers to generate endless new wants, whilst also being attracted to, rather than fearful of, novelty. He points to the inability of economic theory to explain where wants come from (and indeed go to), demonstrating that neither instinctivism (which assumes wants to be inherent and latent), nor manipulationism (which attributes god-like powers to advertisers to create wants in consumers), or indeed Veblenesque emulation (which assumes that consumers are driven by the need to ‘out-do’ their peers) can explain these distinctive features of modern consumerism.
With the phenomenal growth of mobile and social media, many organizations are realizing they need an online presence to reach out to digitally savvy customers. But delivering a seamless customer experience across various online and offline channels is increasingly challenging. This article describes how Hummel, a European sports fashion company, overcame the challenges and successfully transitioned toward omnichannel retailing. Based on this case, we provide insights to guide organizations with similar ambitions, and the implications for their CIOs.
Consumption studies have arguably transformed the study of early modern cultural history in the past three decades, with the championing of previously neglected sources, application of interdisciplinary approaches, and exploration of the mentalities of acquisition, ownership, and use. But does the accumulation of writing about consuming and consumption in this period amount to much more than the historical equivalent of window-shopping? It is argued here that greater attention to the consumers as much as the consumed, to the motivations for consuming rather than the act of consumption alone, offers a way out of the explanatory cul-de-sac reached by over-indulgence in the early modern .
It has been pointed out that managers constitute a very distinct group because of their dual roles in national marketing systems. As consumers, they are either beneficiaries or victims of the system, but, as decision makers, they play a major role in the design and functioning of the marketing system. Against this backdrop, this study examines the similarities and differences in the attitudes of managers and consumers towards marketing practices, consumerism and government regulation, in an industrializing country, India. A survey of the two groups revealed a high level of skepticism regarding the operating philosophy of business, discontent with marketing practices, and support for consumerism movement in both groups. Compared to the consumers, the managers as a group were found to be less favorably disposed towards price controls and greater government regulation of marketing practices.
The attitudes and perceptions of New Zealanders toward current consumerism issues are outlined and compared with four other countries. Many of the opinions expressed are critical of the existing practices of business and appear to be common in the other four countries. The theory of consumer product life cycle suggesting the development of national consumer movements was not supported by the data obtained in New Zealand.
A survey of consumer attitudes towards marketing practices, consumerism and government regulations in India, an industrialising country, revealed a high level of consumer discontent and support for the consumerism movement. A comparison of the results of the survey of consumers in India with the results of a prior study of consumers in six industrialised countries revealed certain similarities as well as differences, thus providing additional empirical insights into the validity of the consumerism life cycle concept.
Most of the literature on the voluntary simplicity (VS) lifestyle has come from the popular press and environmental activists, who tend to take a rather philosophical and moralistic stance. Although several academics have discussed the concept, it has had little mention in the marketing literature. Recently, a detailed commentary has considered the VS lifestyle from a social-science perspective. Although this lifestyle type has been gaining attention, the literature reveals there is no clear understanding of this way of life. Different authors have different opinions about what should be at the essence of what constitutes VS lifestyle behavior. Our research seeks to address this problem by gaining a fuller understanding of voluntary simplifiers in relation to nonvoluntary simplifiers. Thus, this article reports on a study of 53 one-hour interviews that contrasts and compares these two groups. From the findings, it was revealed that there are indeed certain differences across groups that could be of particular interest to marketers and academics. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.