• 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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.545-563
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• 2022

Metaverse is a digitally generated world beyond the physical realm; many fashion brands are launching virtual stores in Metaverse. This study explores the cases of flagship stores of fashion brands in Metaverse to understand the peculiarity of Metaverse retailing. This study selected four flagship stores of fashion brands launched on ZEPETO, the largest Metaverse platform in Korea. The characteristics of Metaverse retailing used for case analysis were store (store credibility, servicescape, ease of use), product (content, demos, incentives), social factor (store personnel, store customers), and entertainment (events, games, free gifts). The results illustrate that a transaction system linked to reality could not be established due to technical limitations; it was difficult to obtain specific product information, such as the color, size, and fabric. However, all four fashion brands overwhelmed the traditional retail channels in terms of providing various spatial experiences by operating their virtual stores in global cities related to the heritage and identity of each brand. Furthermore, fashion brands can convey a sense of deviation and fantasy to consumers by delivering unique entertainment activities in Metaverse that they cannot easily provide in real life.