Journal of Marketing Research
An emerging virtual-reality technology, virtual fitting room (VFR), allows online shoppers to virtually try on clothes. Despite its increasing popularity, how this technology influences different consumer groups is unknown. While the technology enhances product evaluations and purchases among consumers with relatively low body mass index (BMI) levels, it negatively influences responses from high-BMI consumers due to self-image threat induced by avatars that resemble consumers’ own bodies.
Huifang Mao is the Dean’s Fellow in Marketing and a professor of marketing at the Ivy College of Business. Her paper is published in the Journal of Marketing Research.