Shopping with Friends: The Social Experience of Virtual Shopping

Abstract

This study experimentally investigates how key aspects of the shoppingexperience are affected by the act of shopping with virtualfriends, in a three-dimensional, multi-user, virtual environment. Specifically,the study aims to examine the consumer interaction with their virtualfriends on perceived shopping enjoyment, attitude toward the store, andpurchase intention. The study also looks at the interrelated relationshipsamong the consumer responses. Findings suggest that shopping with apurchase pal positively impacts on perceived shopping enjoyment, attitudetoward the store, and purchase intention. The results of this study alsodemonstrate that perceived shopping enjoyment mediate the shopping withfriends experience on attitude toward the store and purchase intention. Interms of enhancing the effectiveness of virtual shopping, this points to theimportance of the hedonic value of the co-shopping experience. All of thissuggests that the strategic focus of e-tailing practitioners should be to createa socially engaging shopping environment by adopting multi-user, virtualenvironment technology.