An Exploratory Study Examining the Effects of Place Creativity and Workplace Attire on Consumer Trust, Attitude, and Purchase Intention in the Virtual E-Commerce Environment

This study empirically investigates the design factors that could engender positive impacts on consumers' user experiences with respect to trust, attitude, and intent to purchase a product promoted in the virtual reality (VR) e-commerce environment. Guided by previous literature, we specifically test the role of schema congruity due to the design of the space and virtual agent on trust, attitude, and purchase intention in the context of VR e-commerce. To test the effect of the congruency between user's schema and virtual environment design on user intentions, a 2× 2 mixed ANOVA design experiment was conducted with place creativity (Low vs. High) as a within factor and workplace attire (Casual vs. Formal) as a between factor. The result showed support for the effect of schema congruity on trust, in that interaction of the two factors were found. Significant positive relationship between trust, attitude, and purchase intention was found. Further implications are discussed based on results.