• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.774-792
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• 2024

Unlike traditional retail formats, the metaverse offers diverse shopping experiences, ranging from content that mimics reality to content that transcends reality based on its characteristic of virtuality. This study elaborates on the concept of virtuality within store environments and investigates how the virtuality level of a metaverse store influences consumers' creative consumption by mediating the flow experience. Additionally, it examines the interaction effect of creative product-seeking tendencies and individual characteristics on the relationship between flow experience and creative consumption behavior. A web-based experiment was conducted on young Korean female adults who experienced metaverse shopping. Ninety-one samples were analyzed using exploratory factor and bootstrap analyses with SPSS Macro process Models 4 and 14. The findings demonstrate that store virtuality (low vs. high) increases consumers' purchase intentions of creative fashion items by enhancing their flow toward the shopping experience. Furthermore, the effect of flow experience on creative consumption is strengthened when consumers have low creative product-seeking tendencies. This study contributes to expanding the concept of virtuality in virtual retailing and provides insights for fashion retailers planning to create virtual shopping spaces within the metaverse platform.