Differences Between Shoppers And Non Shoppers

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Crowding is a technological restriction factor as far as VREs are concerned. Specifically, when there are many people in the same place at the same time, there is lag and sometimes the server can’t meet the requests and becomes unavailable. So, it would be interesting to understand whether people who are "social" have a negative reaction to crowding. Especially, it should be investigated, whether this happens because of the system failure or just avoidance of crowded stores.

The origins of VWs in social computing, as discussed in other studies (Messinger et al. 2009; Chittaro and Ranon 2002) has also been confirmed in the present study as a great percentage (28,8%) of the sample visit VWs only to meet friends or meet new people (social aspect). This was also confirmed by the finding that a great amount of users of all groups (i.e., 86.7%, 97.5%, and 94.1%, respectively) also visit other social networks (such as YouTube, Facebook, MSN etc). Therefore, it is important to take this consideration into account when investigating user-consumer behaviour in V-Commerce.

The social aspect dominating VREs affects the way that store atmosphere determinants could be applied and manipulated towards supporting and influencing consumer behavior. While technology enables customization, in the case of V-Commerce such an option is not a panacea. In contrast to conventional web retailing, V-retailers cannot easily customize their online stores to the unique preferences and wishes of their customers, simply because they face a one-to-many instead of a one-to-one situation. Obviously, this has been the case in the physical retailing world as well. It seems, therefore, that the established knowledge in conventional retailing may be more appropriate as a starting point for formulating and testing research hypotheses through experimental conclusive designs, instead of the extant knowledge on web retailing.

3.8. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE INITIAL STUDY’S RESULTS

Several managerial implications emerge from the findings of this initial study. Critical factors affecting consumers’ choice to visit a virtual reality store were identified. The empirical findings can be exploited by practitioners so as to enhance consumers’ willingness to shop in VWs. This study also suggests that "Core Store Features" (Variety of the Products, Quick Access and Easy Walking through the store, Prices of the Products and Store Atmosphere) and "Security and Privacy" issues are key aspects that practitioners should invest in, in order to create positive attitudes towards their businesses.

Also, managers should focus on increasing the time customers spend at their virtual reality stores since this was found to positively affect the money that customers spend online. This could be implemented through the appropriate manipulation of variables that according to the available literature seem to affect this consumer behavioral dimension. Indicatively, store layout is one critical such dimension, that was shown to affect the time customers spend in Web 1.0 (i.e., 2D Web retail stores) and Web 2.0 (3D retail stores), respectively (Vrechopoulos et al. 2004; Vrechopoulos et al. 2009). This is an indication that store layout merits further investigation in VWs, and therefore is central to this PhD study.

Managers of virtual reality stores should also invest in designing stores that offer a wide variety of entertaining and innovative store atmosphere related features. It is clear that the "culture" of VWs’ users increases their expectations for high quality graphical user interfaces. Both shoppers and non-shoppers visiting VWs are experienced enough (e.g., have been playing online games through a virtual reality interface) to use advanced software tools and applications.

Another important managerial implication refers to the need to invest in information management initiatives (i.e., consumer behavior research). Specifically, a challenging research and business opportunity is to create "segments of one customer" and adjust accordingly the business offering at the individual level. In other words, managers, assisted by technology and following permission marketing guidelines, can easily and at low cost collect, process and exploit consumer information in order to customize the virtual reality retail mix at the individual level (i.e., the essence of "mass customization" – see Strauss and Frost 2009). Indicatively, they could allocate resources towards obtaining a 360 degrees view of each customer’s relationships and profile. Thus, managers will be aware of the most important store selection criteria for each customer individually. Similarly, managers will be able to predict sales at the individual level through the appropriate manipulation of user generated content (e.g., POS data, navigational data, etc).

However, as also discussed above, some store image variables (e.g., layout) may not be available in a customized manner due to the social presence dimension that seems to dominate VWs. This implies that since many consumers prefer to conduct shopping through their avatars in a "social" VW retail environment (i.e., in the presence of others at the same store at the same time - similarly to conventional retailing) managers should invest in selecting the most effective layout for their store in a one-to-many basis (as it happens in physical stores). This suggests that future research should also consider classifying store layouts available in the context of VWs or design new ones to test cause-and-effect relationships and explore how alternative store layout types affect consumer behavior.

Finally, managers should realize the importance of their stores’ atmosphere as a major consumer behavior influencing factor, thus, preventing the business’ failures that several web retail stores faced in the previous decade. Specifically, they should be both aware of the applicability and customization options of the available store atmosphere determinants (Table 1) and advised on how consumers perceive and group in their minds store atmosphere variables. For example, in a number of VWs such as "Second life", avatars enjoy flying or being teleported. However, the ability of flying throughout a shop to watch all, or most of the available products or services might bring about opportunities for changes in the store layout (Prasolova 2008).

3.9. LIMITATIONS OF THE INITIAL STUDY

This initial study has several limitations. The main limitation refers to the large proportion of Greek users participating in the sample as noted in the methodology section. Thus, generalizations of the results should be made with caution. However, a recent research of B2C E-Commerce in Greece for 2011 conducted by the ELTRUN E-Business Research Center (Eltrun 2011), indicated that the number and the amount of sales of Greek online users in 2011, has reached the underlying European numbers. This is an indication that Greek users are likely to exhibit a similar profile of the average European user.

In terms of age distribution, our sample is limited to adults and appears to have a high proportion (43.3%) of people under 25 years of age. However, this is consistent with the profile of VWs users, where people over 25 years old are a minority, whereas minors are the majority (Kzero 2011c). While minors were deliberately excluded from the research, it is posited that the high proportion of young people is relevant to this research. While they may presently have low purchasing power, they do care about store related features. They could be current or potential customers and, in this respect, it is important to investigate their preferences as they constitute the emerging target group of such environments. Furthermore, young people are usually more technology savvy than older ones. Since this age group is usually more familiar with advanced IT systems and applications (e.g., navigating in a 3D environment), often as a consequence of their online gaming experience in such settings. Thus, they can evaluate VWs more reliably than older customers that usually are less familiar with these environments. Thus, they constitute an attractive sample since they tend to adopt innovative products and services.

Another limitation of this study is the relatively small R2 value of the stepwise regression model. This suggests that future research should consider more independent variables that are likely to influence shopping decisions and behavior. For example, more attention could be drawn to the social aspect of VWs, including such metrics as the effect of the presence of others on shopping.

An additional limitation of this study that needs further investigation is whether the results about money that people spend when shopping in virtual environments are about real or virtual products and whether the iterative process of shopping differs in each category. Future research should explore the types of virtual reality users and underlying dimensions that the corresponding manipulation of store atmosphere’s criteria will affect as well as explore virtual reality search of products/services patterns and purchase intentions.

Also, a limitation of this study is reflected to the fact that shopping in virtual worlds seems to be a novel consumer behavior, which is currently rather fluid and subject to changes. Therefore, the elaborate quantitative study presented here might become quickly outdated, as the medium and the behaviors that are afforded by it are transformed. However, it is considered that it is worth looking at behavior in virtual worlds as it evolves. First, this contributes to our understanding of what is currently happening in this environment. Through this quantitative investigation we have the opportunity to explore the applicability of different metrics and to provide insights for further research in this field. This second contribution is particularly important, as it sets the scene for exploring how this new environment will evolve. Finally, it might be the case that the online virtual word consumer behavior is exactly the same like the one offline, but until there is a critical mass of evidence on this, the practical significance of this research is only limited to early adopters of the respective medium.

However, according to the Diffusion of Innovation Theory (Rogers 1983) a new to the world product or service is firstly adopted by innovators and then by early adopters. Thus, the present study investigates the behavior of these users-consumers that have adopted the innovation of VWs first. Besides, this is the only available sample that could answer to a questionnaire like the one used by the present study, simply because the remaining Internet users have no experience in interacting with VWs and, therefore, they are not able to answer the corresponding questions. In sum, it is common research practice to conduct quantitative consumer surveys targeting innovators and early adopters of any given innovation (e.g., Internet shoppers were considered innovators in the previous decade – see Vrechopoulos et al. 2001).

3.10. FUTURE RESEARCH INITIATIVES OF THE INITIAL STUDY

Several of the present study’s findings confirm prior knowledge regarding consumer behavior in the "traditional" web environment. However, there are findings in this study that suggest that consumer behavior in virtual worlds may differ to that of conventional or electronic retailing. In this respect, the present initial study served as motivation for further interdisciplinary research, bringing together insights from the marketing and information systems literature, to explore user and consumer behavior on this fast evolving and promising retail channel.

The fact that 71,2% of the study’s respondents reported that visit apparel stores/business in VRE, suggests that there should be a more in depth analysis in understanding consumer behaviour toward apparel industry. Gruen et al. (2006) support that consumers, through the internet, can implicitly be promoters of a certain brand. Fashion marketers have recognized the power of word-of-mouth monitoring through the internet in order to keep up with trends and consumers’ attitude (Kim and Jin 2006). Similarly, Jepsen (2006) stated that consumer seek information about products mostly based on virtual communities’ opinions (such as Facebook and MySpace) rather than in brochures and advertisements. VREs are by nature social environments and there is need for further research about how the great amount of information gathered in these places, and the store design affects consumers’ attitude toward specific stores of apparel industry.

Consumer/user behaviour within virtual communities represents a synchronous and complex process where many factors and conditions are involved. These focus on the sharing of a great amount of information, on the activities of the users and how the context of the environment underlines corresponding behaviour. The present study findings highlight similarities and differences between users that visit web stores and virtual reality stores. The results call for further investigation in order to understand consumer behaviour in these environments and provide managerial implications in identifying patterns on designing the atmosphere of a virtual reality store in order to attract specific market groups.

Researchers could investigate how crowding and "innovation atmosphere" affect consumer behavior in Virtual Worlds and provide design guidelines to practitioners for creating suitable stores similarly to the traditional physical store’s research and business practice. Conversely, there is a need to explore in more depth characteristics such as telepresense, vividness, interaction and virtual object touch. In this respect, there is a considerable challenge in this area for researchers to investigate store layout effects on consumer buying behavior in order to meet the need of designing suitable layout types for this emerging retailing channel. Specifically, researchers could attempt to classify the available types of VWs retail store layouts and investigate through experimental designs whether there are significant differences between them as far as consumer behaviour dependent variables are concerned. Alternatively, researchers could transform and adapt the available knowledge from conventional and Web 1.0 retailing to V-Commerce and proceed to empirically test through experiments whether this theory is confirmed.

3.11. SUMMARY

This chapter constitutes the initial research phase in this thesis, aimed at presenting store atmosphere determinants and store selection criteria in VWs. An electronic questionnaire administered within the Virtual World Second Life served as the data collection instrument of an exploratory and a conclusive research study. This initial research phase revealed that the store layout of 3D online stores is a critical store atmosphere determinant which is perceived differently by the users-consumers. The role of store atmosphere as an important store selection criterion was also confirmed. The main findings of this phase are used as a starting point for articulating and developing specific research hypotheses and the research design of the main research study presented in the following chapters.

Additional results of this initial research phase bring to the fore the characteristics of users-consumers in VWs and their orientation, the components of store atmosphere and their grouping into subordinate factors, the selection criteria and their importance of users-consumers when visiting 3D stores in VWs, and the importance that individuals attach to store selection criteria. Also, the orientation of shoppers and non-shoppers in terms of distinctive characteristics of VWs, such as the process of creating an avatar and walking around and visiting places, were discussed. Finally, the amount of money spent in VWs was found to be affected by the average time spent in the store and the frequency of visiting VWs.

CHAPTER 4. DEVELOPMENT AND THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF RESEARCH HYPOTHESES AND MAIN STUDY METHODOLOGY

The chapter presents the hypotheses and methodology for the main study of the thesis, investigating the role of store layout in 3D online environments. It builds on the literature review presented in the second chapter and the results of the initial study (Chapter 3). Research hypotheses are presented first, along with the supporting theory, and the research model. The main study is comprised of a qualitative study (i.e., Delphi method: Stage#1 of the study) and a quantitative (i.e., Laboratory experiment: Stage#2 of the study). The methodology framework, the research design selection, the sample design, the data collection, the analysis and interpretation of both stages of the main study are discussed.

The research process followed in various stages of this study is based on six steps of the Marketing Research Process outlined by Malhotra (2007).

Based on this marketing process, the following figure (i.e., Figure 4.1) depicts the various stages of the research methodology employed by the present PhD study in order to answer to the aforementioned research questions and test the corresponding research hypotheses.

Specifically, the first step of this study has been the definition of a broad statement of the general problem and identification of the specific components as far as virtual reality retailing store atmosphere is concerned. This was accomplished by stating the factors that have an impact on the definition of the marketing research problem, including past information and forecasts, recourses and constraints, experts’ opinion, psychological, economic and legal and environment, and consumer behavior (initial research  internet survey).

In addition, an analytical model was followed, in order to accomplish an explicit specification of a set of variables and their interrelationships designed to represent the model in whole. For example, in this phase it was decided that a qualitative study (i.e., Delphi method:stage #1 of the main study) should be undertaken to form specific components of the problem. Afterwards, the statements of the specific components of the problem were refined, and some components of the statements had to be broken down into subcomponents or research questions. The next step has been the design of a framework detailing the necessary procedures for investigating the marketing research problem.

Results of the initial study presented in the third chapter indicated store layout as an important dimension of store atmosphere that seems to affect consumer bahaviour. A Delphi study was considered the most appropriate method to investigate whether there are distinct layout types in 3D online environments and the components of each one of them. The Delphi results indicated that there are five distinct layout types in 3D online environments. This outcome (i.e., layout) has been used as the independent variable of the research model presented in the next section.

In order to test the specific hypotheses and examine specific relationships a conclusive - causal research was followed, by implementing first the laboratory experiment design, sample design and data collection instrument. As far as the experiment design is concerned, a visualisation of distinct layouts was developed, in order to test subjects and how these subjects are to be divided in homogenous subsamples, to manipulate and measure independent variables or treatments of the research model. The following step has been data analysis and interpretation, using one-way repeated-measures Analysis of Variance, mixed/split-plot Analysis of Variance, and Multiple Regression, and the final step conclusions, implications and guidelines for further research.

4.1. RESEARCH HYPOTHESES AND RESEARCH MODEL

4.1.1. Research Hypotheses

Elaborating on the literature review and results of the initial study (Chapter #3), store layout was identified as an important factor influencing consumer behaviour in 3D online environments. One of the main research objectives presented in the second chapter is to investigate how layout affects various aspects of consumers (i.e., entertainment, online shopping enjoyment, navigation, interactivity, etc). A thorough literature review, part of it discussed in chapter two, served to identify the issues affected by the layout of a store in traditional, 2D online, and 3D online environments.

Retailers strive to design their stores in order to help customers easily find the products they are looking for. Numerous research studies indicate store efficiency as an important factor influencing consumer behaviour (Sherman 1984; Kamakura et al. 1996). One of the main advantages of catalog shopping is attributed to efficiency. Titus and Everett (1995) consider store layout as an important influence factor of search efficiency within a store. In this point of view, Puccineli et al. (2009) consider that long stores with long aisles may dispirit customers from searching products in a store, as is considered a difficult process. The desire for search efficiency becomes greater when there is not enough time for shopping, while an inefficient search for products diminishes customers’ personal recourses, such as time (Rose et al. 2012). In 3D online environments, users/customers, through their avatars, also walk around the 3D store to locate the products they are looking for. Thus, the following research hypothesis is formulated:

Hypothesis #1: The 3D online store layout influences efficiency of customers during their 3D online store visit.

Wang et al. (2011) emphasize the hedonic aspect of web aesthetics of online stores, implying that 2D online stores should not only focus on the utilitarian aspect of customer experience, such as cheap merchandise and fast product delivery, but also on the experiential state of these characteristics. The merchandise quality perception and the store layout are some of the attributes considered as "value signals" (Zeithaml 1988) and Kerin et al. (1992) have empirically tested and shown their influence on consumer behaviour. Also, merchandise policies of the behalf of retailers have proved to affect the perceptions of customers in terms of pricing and value of the products (Smith and Barnes 1996). To this end, customers are expected to price higher a product of superior merchandise quality perception. Gardner and Siomkos (1985), studying the effects of in-store atmospherics, identified that consumers perceived of higher value a perfume of a specific brand in "high image" design description, than in a "low image" design for the same perfume. Also, studying merchandise quality perceptions addressed a direct effect of design cues of the store (e.g., layout) on merchandise quality perceptions (Baker et al. 2002). In 3D online environments, retailers are technologically capable of creating or manipulating the perceptions of the products’ quality, resulting in the following research hypothesis formulation:

Hypothesis #2: The 3D online store layout influences 3D online store’s merchandise quality perceptions of customers.

Eroglu et al. (2003) found that customer’s affective response can be influenced by the environmental attributes of a 2D online store. The environmental attributes of the store are positively related to in-store consumer behaviour (Tai and Agnes 1997). Browsing in a store’s environment is considered to affect shopping enjoyment (Cox et al. 2005). Also, Kim et al. (2007) state that the excitement created by the store environment has a positive impact on shopping enjoyment. The fact that the presentation of 3D virtual products is positively related to enjoyment is mentioned in Li et al.’s (2001) study. 3D online environments provide platforms for highly vivid interfaces development and various ways of presentation of products. Thus, the following hypothesis is formulated:

Hypothesis #3: The 3D online store layout influences online shopping enjoyment of customers during their 3D online store visit.

Wakefield and Baker (1998) consider involvement as an organism factor leading to several behavioral responses (e.g., desire to stay and repatronage intentions). In the same vein, Novak et al. (2000) found a positive relationship between web site characteristics and cognitive states (i.e., involvement). Fiore and Jin (2003) and Li et al. (2001) both support that 3D product presentation and visualization and rich visual information can have a positive impact on involvement. The design of 3D online stores can be engaging enough to provoke customers become more involved and repatronize the store. Thus, the following hypothesis tests whether the distinct characteristics of the five store layouts can encourage customer to become more or less involved with the store. This speculation leads to the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis #4: The 3D online store layout influences online shopping involvement of customers with the 3D online store.

The perceptions of an online store could have a direct strong effect on attitude towards the store (van der Heijden and Verhagen 2004). In electronic commerce, (Park and Kim 2003) investigated the role of characteristics of the store on store perception. In the same vein, they state that store layout influences the experience and the perception of customers towards the store. Kim et al. (2007), following Mummalaneni’ s (2005) argument that there is a positive relationship between the design of the store and pleasure, and Vrechopoulos et al.’s (2004) argument that the layout of the store is positively related to entertainment, hypothesize that the use of interactive technology is positively related to online store perception. In the context of 3D online environments, the present study seeks to investigate whether various types of store layout create different perceptions towards the store. For example, a "boutique or specialty" type of layout is likely to create different perceptions towards the character of the store (e.g., is it attractive or not?) than a "warehouse" type of layout. Thus:

Hypothesis #5: The 3D online store layout influences 3D online store’s perception of customers.

According to Verhagen and Dolen (2011), communication style in the context of 2D online commerce is an organism element referring to the way that the web site communicates with its customers. Similarly, they suggest three dimensions as the determinants of communication style; namely "a) kindness of the approach (calm instead of assertive), b) social orientation (friendly, building relationships), and c) demonstration of expertise and competence (knowledgeability)". Elaborating on their study, an attempt to identify whether customers perceive differently communication style of various types of store layouts in the context of 3D online retail stores is considered appropriate. To this end, it is argued that there are statistical significant differences among the layout of the store in terms of calm, friendly, and knowledgeable perceptions.

Hypothesis #6: The 3D online store layout influences the 3D online store communication style as perceived by customers.

Ease of use and usefulness have been widely studied in the context of traditional and online retailing (Harris and Goode 2010; Zeithaml et al. 2002). The basis for the following two hypotheses is built upon conclusions drawn from consumer behaviour in traditional and 2D online stores. This study endorses the terms ease of use and usefulness as defined by Davis (1989) and enriched from online retailing studies.

More specifically, Lightner et al. (1996) addressed the reasons that cause poor ease of use in web sites; namely slow view of pages, inability to find a previously visited web page, poor asystematic assortment of information and inability to find. In terms of usefulness, Lee et al. (2003) and Chen et al. (2002) suggest that the users-consumers should exposed in appropriate amount of information so as to increase the usefulness of a web site. In this point of view, Griffith (1990) considered accuracy and relevance of information as key determinants of the usefulness of a web site. The functionality of web sites is studied by Wei and Ozok (2005) in order to meet users’ usability needs. Also, navigational cues and screen design characteristics are positively related to ease of use.

Vrechopoulos et al. (2004) identified a strong relationship between an online store’s layout and ease of use and usefulness respectively. They found significant differences among the layout types that investigated in terms of ease of use and usefulness. Similarly, they encourage retailers not to adopt established guidelines and principles from conventional retailing that are not tested in online context, implying that the context of the research is important for the effects’ determination. Finally, Krasonikolakis et al. (2010), as presented in the previous chapter, found significant differences among store determinants in traditional, 2D online, and 3D online retail stores. They recognized the deficiency of research on this topic and call researchers to investigate the influence of store layout in this context. In this regard, the following hypotheses were generated:

Hypothesis #7: The 3D online store layout influences perceived ease of use of customers during their 3D online store visit.

Hypothesis #8: The 3D online store layout influences perceived usefulness of customers during their 3D online store visit.

Research conducted in traditional and online environments recognizes the importance of deigning the stores in ways that provide entertaining experiences to users/customers (Ghosh 1994; Levy and Weitz 2001;). There are specific store layout designs in traditional retailing which are more pleasant than others (Mason et al. 1991). For example, it is much more entertaining and less usual to go shopping in a department store than in a supermarket. Similarly, in online environments Bruner and Kumar (2000) confirmed the influence of the interface of a web site on entertainment and Jarvenpaa and Todd (1997) emphasize this importance. In the same vein, Vrechopoulos et al. (2004) investigating the influence of graphical user interface of a web site on entertainment, found that the free form layout was significantly influenced the entertainment dimension of users. The fact that there are distinct layout types in 3D online environments is likely to influence entertainment of users in different ways. Thus:

Hypothesis #9: The 3D online store layout influences customers’ entertainment during the 3D online store visit.

Jarvenpaa and Todd (1997), studying consumer reactions in online stores argued that convenience is one of the most important and influencing factors. Similarly Oh et al. (2008) investigating the influence of store atmosphere (i.e., storefront design and information display) on convenience as an organism factor, showed that users found more convenient the stores with picture-driven information that text-driven. Their results are in line with Geissler’s (2001), who argues that sophisticated layouts will probably be more eye-catching at first, but they are not considered convenient for users-consumers. In 3D online environments there are cases where the design of the store is quite simple, while in other cases a sophisticated design is adopted to attract customers.

Hypothesis #10: The 3D online store layout influences customers’ convenience during their 3D online store visit.

Ernst and Young’s (1998) study demonstrated safety is a critical dimension in consumers’ perception towards the evaluation of web sites. Oh et al. (2008) considered safety as an affective element, and as an important mediating factor in the relationship between store atmosphere and merchandise quality perceptions, while the results of their study did not confirm their hypothesis. However, there has been considerable research in the online environments regarding security and privacy issues of users/customers (Yang et al. 2004). One of the most imperative goals for environments that are considered quite risky such as eBay has been to create a trusted and safe environment (Boyd 2002). It is critical at an early stage of customers’ interaction with a web site, to make them feel safe in terms of the privacy and safety of transactions. If this first requirement is met, then customers react spontaneously in the following interactions with the stores, and are considered experienced as far as safety and privacy are concerned (Yoon 2002). 3D online environments are considered innovative and at an early stage of their development. It is likely that a great proportion of users interacting with these environments are familiar with safety and privacy issues in 2D online environments, but not familiar with security issues in 3D online environments. The design and interaction with a 3D online store, is likely to creative negative feelings about transactions with the store, and to be considered that jeopardizes his/her privacy. Thus:

Hypothesis #11: The 3D online store layout influences customers’ safety towards the 3D online store.

Navigation in an online context "includes the process of exploring the interactive environment in alternative ways to seek-out product related information" (Childers et al. 2001, p.515). The user-consumer may have more or less control on searching products within a store both in an offline and online retail context. In traditional retail stores, the simple floor design has been shown to improve the ability to navigate within the store (Weisman 1981). According to Childers et al. (2001), traditional retail stores retain a layout that is more obvious to consumers than an online web store, which will follow internal structures. Specifically, Lynch and Ariely (2000) showed a direct effect of navigation on purchase intentions in case the information about the products had been easily navigable. Navigation plays an important role in 3D online retail stores because of the avatars moves within the store. Consumers interact with the layout of the stores through their avatars. Activities such as flying through the store instead of walking, visiting a store by emerging from its open floor, three dimensional display and allocation of products, virtual salesmen, and lighted signs guiding customers through the stores are some of the usual navigational behaviours in 3D online retail stores. Thus, it is considered that navigation within a 3D online store is strongly affected by the designing of the store layout.

Hypothesis #12: The 3D online store layout influences customers’ navigation within the 3D online store.

Chang and Chen (2009) studying consumer behaviour in online stores in terms of interface quality, security and loyalty, define interactivity as the degree of bidirectional communication between the customers and web store. They emphasize the role of web interface to replace the role of store atmosphere and employees of traditional retail stores. 3D online environments could provide cutting-edge technology available in web stores, but also, can simulate processes of traditional retail stores. In this regard, an avatar in a 3D online store could substitute the role of a salesman of a physical store. Also, teleporting stations and customer support kiosks could enhance the interaction between customers and the store. Interactivity has been shown to be a critical attribute of store atmosphere in traditional and online retail stores (Griffith 2005); it is worthwhile testing how the combination of interactive features of 3D online stores is perceived by consumers. Thus:

Hypothesis #13: The 3D online store layout influences customers’ interactivity with the 3D online store.

Kaltcheva and Weitz (2006) emphasize the influence of store layout on customer experience. According to their argument, the layout of the store is an element of store atmosphere that is difficult to modify, and taking this into consideration, retailers should design their stores in order to provide intermediate level of arousal in terms of the motivational orientation of customers. Rose et al. (2012) consider arousal, pleasure, and dominance as elements of the affective experiential state of online customer experience. In the same study, they illustrate flow, as the cognitive experiential state dimension of online customer experience. Cognitive, affective, social, and physical states are considered attributes of customer experience according to Verhoef et al. (2009), who name the design of the store as part of retail atmosphere as a direct influencing factor on customer experience. Thus the store layout as element of the design of the store should be tested to see whether the layout of a 3D online store influences customer experience.

Hypothesis #14: The 3D online store layout influences customers’ experience (i.e., pleasure, arousal, dominance, flow) towards the 3D online store.

The effect of layout on purchase intentions has been widely studied and confirmed in traditional and online retailing (Griffith 2005; Verhagen and Dolen 2009; Chang and Chen 2008; Parke et al. 2005; van der Heijden and Verhagen 2004). Verhagen and Dolen (2009) studying the factors affecting online purchase intention, concluded that, among others, the offline store layout is perceived as point of reference for the online store layout and online purchase intentions. The significance of store layout on purchase intentions has been confirmed by Then and Delong (1999) in the apparel industry. Also, a pleasant store layout has a direct effect on moods, and positive moods have a direct positive effect on purchase intentions (Park et al. 2005). This thesis is attempting to examine all attributes that constitute store layout in 3D online retail stores. Since layout has been shown to affect purchase intentions, it is likely that the attributes of layout in 3D online stores predict customers’ online purchase intentions.

Hypothesis #15: Customers’ online purchase intention towards 3D online stores is predicted by customers’ evaluation of 3D online store layouts in terms of:

H15(1): efficiency

H15(2): merchandize quality perceptions

H15(3): online shopping enjoyment

H15(4): online shopping involvement

H15(5): online store perception

H15(6): communication style

H15(7): usefulness

H15(8): ease of use

H15(9):entertainment

H15(10):convenience

H15(11):safety

H15(12):navigation

H15(13):interactivity

H15(14): online customer experience

Word of mouth has been a sensitive influencing factor in various domains because of its intangible aspect (Berry 2000); for example that is the reason why word of mouth is usually on the top of reasons for customers’ choice of a doctor, which is a sensitive matter (Parasuraman 1991; Berry 1999). A poor store layout is an antecedent to negative consumer behaviour towards a store and word of mouth intentions (Wong and Sohal 2003). DeCarlo et al. (2007), investigating the role of image on negative word of mouth, showed that there are interactive effects on customers negative word of mouth and the image of the retailer. Similarly, Babin et al. (2005) found that the hedonic and utilitarian values of servicescape components seem to affect word of mouth intentions. Finally, Bridson, Evans, and Hickman (2008) demonstrated the influence of store layout as part of the trading format of the retailer on word of mouth intentions. In this regard, it is hypothesized that the attributes of layout in 3D online environments will predict the word of mouth intentions of the customers.