The Effect of Consumer Traits on Their Intention to Use Luxury Virtual-Reality (VR) Products: The Mediating Role of Status Signaling

The increasing integration of Virtual Reality (VR) features into social-networking (SN) environments has provided new opportunities for developing virtual-fashion products. These products are intended to be "worn" either on "real" bodies through Augmented Reality features, or on virtual avatars in gaming environments and the like. These virtual clothes are often worn to show-off status, achievement, and purchasing power in these VR environments. We focused on the emerging category of virtual luxury (VL) products and investigated which consumer segments, based on their personality traits, would be more willing to (partially) switch from physical luxury products to their virtual counterparts in their status-signaling activities through SN posts. We found that consumers with (a) higher self-efficacy regarding SN and VR environment, (b) more positive attitude towards SN and VR environments, (c) higher need-for-status, and (d) higher novelty-seeking motives tend to evaluate status-conveying potential of VL products more positively. Age (negatively) and income (positively) affect such evaluations. Moreover, the perceived status-conveying potential mediates the effect of consumer traits on their intention to switch to VL in their SN posts.