The purpose of this study is to explore how customer immersion can be enhanced in online stores. Immersion means deep absorption into activity or experience, leading even to dissociation from the physical world’s existence. Immersion is a common term in gaming research, but with the development of digital technologies and online stores, it is increasingly being adopted in marketing research as well. In this study, we seek an understanding of the customer-centric perspective of immersion in online shopping using a qualitative approach. The data was collected by interviewing eight 20–29-year-old Finnish adults who had made clothing-related online purchases within the last three months. The data analysis was conducted with inductive coding, which led to four main ways to enhance customer online shopping immersion, with ten sub-categories; the four ways of how customer immersion can be improved in online shopping are using captivating online store characteristics, providing online store discounts, engaging online shoppers in calm physical surroundings and, lastly, stimulating online shopper’s imagination. It is interesting for companies that already exist and have well-adopted online store solutions that may enhance customer online shopping immersion, but more research is needed from different settings.

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Enhancing Customer Immersion in Online Shopping

  • Tiina Paananen,
  • Tiina Kemppainen,
  • Jenni Ström,
  • Lauri Frank

摘要

The purpose of this study is to explore how customer immersion can be enhanced in online stores. Immersion means deep absorption into activity or experience, leading even to dissociation from the physical world’s existence. Immersion is a common term in gaming research, but with the development of digital technologies and online stores, it is increasingly being adopted in marketing research as well. In this study, we seek an understanding of the customer-centric perspective of immersion in online shopping using a qualitative approach. The data was collected by interviewing eight 20–29-year-old Finnish adults who had made clothing-related online purchases within the last three months. The data analysis was conducted with inductive coding, which led to four main ways to enhance customer online shopping immersion, with ten sub-categories; the four ways of how customer immersion can be improved in online shopping are using captivating online store characteristics, providing online store discounts, engaging online shoppers in calm physical surroundings and, lastly, stimulating online shopper’s imagination. It is interesting for companies that already exist and have well-adopted online store solutions that may enhance customer online shopping immersion, but more research is needed from different settings.