Ssetting The Research Agenda For Store Atmosphere Studies In virtual Reality Retailing: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Virtual Reality Retailing (VRR) has proved to be an emerging retailing channel with an ongoing economic activity in recent years. There are plenty of virtual worlds where businesses develop, some of which have developed a self-governing economy retaining its own currency. While there has been considerable amount of research as far as store atmosphere is concerned in brick-and-mortar and web retailing, research in the new retailing channel is generally deficient. The growing virtual retailing environment (VRE) resembles but also differs in terms of store atmosphere characteristics both with the traditional and Web environment. The present paper reviews current business practice in virtual worlds and sets the research agenda as far as virtual store atmosphere studies is concerned. To that end, it is attempted to justify the need for adopting interdisciplinary research initiatives when studying store atmosphere effects on consumer behavior in the context of VRR. Specifically, the paper calls for employing established knowledge derived through the Information Systems and Marketing disciplines.