Technology-enabled engagement process of brand virtual-try-on services
| Date | 06 December 2024 |
| Pages | 44-60 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-12-2023-4859 |
| Published date | 06 December 2024 |
| Author | Muhammad Zahid Nawaz,Francisco Guzmán,Shahid Nawaz |
Technology-enabled engagement process
of brand virtual-try-on services
Muhammad Zahid Nawaz
Department of Marketing, INSEEC, Paris, France
Francisco Guzm
an
Department of Marketing, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA, and
Shahid Nawaz
Department of Marketing, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur Pakistan, Bahawalpur, Pakistan and Department of Marketing,
College of Science and Technology, Ningbo University, Cixi, China
Abstract
Purpose –New-age technologies are driving brand digitalization and influencing consumer retail experiences and consumptionpatterns. Although
past research addresses users’/consumers’acceptance of these technologies in retail, it refrains from thoroughly studying interaction and
engagement. Stemming from the technology acceptance model, the purpose of this paper is to empi rically study the practicality of the technology-
enabled engagement process comprising stages of interaction, psychological engagement, value-in-use and behavioral engagement during
consumers’interactions with augmented reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning based virtual try-on services.
Design/methodology/approach –Data from an online survey conducted in China of 339 consumers who experienced the virtual-try-on serv ice is
analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling.
Findings –The results support the technology-enabled engagement process of brand virtual try-on services. Perceived ease of use and usefulness
are robust antecedents of the framework during the interaction stage. Emotional and cognitive aspects contribute to the psychological engage ment
and value-in-use stages that convert into positive e-word of mouth and buying intentions about the brand in the behavioral engagement stage.
Originality/value –The research contributes to the technology acceptance model, information systems and technology marketing literature by
testing a novel technology-enabled engagement process, which previously lacked empirical validation. Specifically,it uses technology acceptance
model constructs as antecedents of the technology-enabled engagement process framework, with behavioral intentions in the formof e-word of
mouth and buying intentions as precedents. It also provides insights into brands’virtual try-on services in online retail environments.Practical
implications for brand managers are discussed.
Keywords Brand virtual try-on, Technology-enabled engagement process, Ease of use, Usefulness, e-word of mouth, Buying intention
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
New-age technologies like Web 3.0, artificial intelligence (AI), 5G,
big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR),
virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR) and others are driving brand
digitalization –the integration of digital technologies into brand
building and management (Li et al.,2023)–and influencing
consumer experiences and consumption patterns (Ameen et al.,
2021;Carlsson-Szlezak et al.,2020;Treiblmaier and
Petrozhitskaya, 2023). These technologies are meant to provide
easy to use, useful, agile, ubiquitous and proximal services (Wang
et al.,2020). They heavily impact marketing practices and allow
consumers to have a targeted, immersive, interactive, personalized,
exciting and seamless shopping experience (Grewal et al.,2020;
Papagiannidis et al.,2017). The 20% of brands that apply
these technologies drive around 144% of the industry’sprofit
(Jones, 2022). These technology applications have transformed
brands’retail environments by converting online shopping into a
stirring activity; nonetheless, evaluating fashion products requires
multiple sensory experiences, which come from interactions and
engagement (Bl
azquez, 2014;Wu and Kim, 2022). Past research
addresses users’/consumers’acceptance of these technologies in
retail (Adapa et al.,2020;Baytar et al.,2020;Rejeb et al., 2023;
Tawira and Ivanov, 2023) but refrains from thoroughly studying
interaction and engagement; thus, its contribution to theory and
knowledge of information systems and marketing remains limited
(Ameen et al.,2021;Barwitz and Maas, 2018).
Over the past few years, Chinese consumers ceased to shop
physically despite improved purchasing power due to continued
pandemic waves (Jiang et al.,2021). AR thus emerged among
interactive application domains; its novelty and immersivity
attracted users by enhancing online retail environments and
The current issue and full text archiveof this journal is available on Emerald
Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
34/1 (2025) 44–60
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-12-2023-4859]
Funding: This work is supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China [Grants numbers 72274029, 71774027]; and The
Liaoning BaiQianWan Talents Program.
Received 8 December 2023
Revised 29 June 2024
23 August 2024
Accepted 25 September 2024
44
shopping experiences (Ivanov et al.,2022;Marelli et al.,2022).
Nevertheless, issues of misfit–thedifferencebetweenthe
expected and actual quality or specifications of products/brands
(Buyukaslan et al.,2020;Pantano et al.,2017)–became
common. To overcome these, fashion cosmetic brands (i.e. Estee
Lauder,Sephora,L’Or
eal, Olive Young and Perfect) began
offering AR-applied virtual-try-on (VTO) services –the sector
became a pioneer with early technical success and positive
returns (Stepaniuk, 2023)–providing consumers an increased
interaction and experience, and an opportunity to try on products
prior to buying them (Baytar et al.,2020;Wu and Kim, 2022).
While the benefits of VTO services are intuitive, difficulties
persist and halt many attempts (Wu and Kim, 2022).
VTO services are generally provided through apps that
consumers find easy to use due to their familiarity with
smartphones, which have inevitably changed consumption
patterns, especially in retail (Goebert and Greenhalgh, 2020;
Nikhashemi et al.,2021;Tawira and Ivanov, 2023). Brands can
provide detailed information about products and affect
consumers’perceptions through VTO apps, which users can
personalize and interact with within their contexts (Oyman et al.,
2022). Nevertheless, trying products virtually makes online
shopping a complex experience, especially for high-involvement
products like cosmetics and clothes, whe re the absence of touch,
feel, smell and physical try-on makes evaluation difficult,
negatively affecting the experience (Bl
azquez, 2014). VTO
services have increased in the cosmetic industry, but the
technology is not always accepted, used, or engaging for
consumers and is yet to be explored (Bialkova and Barr, 2022).
Whereas the focus of technology applications is interaction,
consumer shopping experiences are integrative, encompassing
cognitive or psychological and affective or behavioral processing
(Baytar et al.,2020). It is the technology attributes that derive
from the technological structure and interactive properties that
explain these psychological and behavioral experiences (Do et al.,
2020;Zhao et al.,2020). Moreover, a knowledge gap still exists
regarding perceptions and responses to VTO services and how
these services add value to brands’shopping experiences (Chen
et al.,2022;Lao et al.,2021;Lee et al.,2022;Plotkina et al.,
2022). This research aims to address this gap.
The technology-enabled engagement (TEE) process has
been proposed as an integrated framework to describe AR
services like VTO (Chidambaram et al., 2024;Heller et al.,
2021). The framework considers engagement as a process and
includes its antecedents and precedents, allowing us tobetter
understand the value VTO services imbue users’shopping
experiences. Past studies have focused on various aspects of
VTO service settings (Bonetti et al.,2018;Paulo et al.,2018),
but limited research has focused on their value-creation
significance through the TEE process (Heller et al., 2021), in
particular considering the ease, practicality, accessibility, and
engagement of the AR experience. Only recent work by
Chidambaram et al. (2024) empirically examinesthe influence
of VTO services on consumers’online apparel purchasing
behavior using constructs from the technology acceptance
model. This study thus focuses on perceived ease of use and
perceived usefulness as antecedentsof the TEE process,
extracted from the technology acceptance model (TAM), and
two behavioral intentions –positive e-word of mouthand
buying intentions –that have received significant attention
from VR/AR scholars(Riar et al.,2021;Schiopu et al.,2021), as
precedents. It explores these relationships by focusingon the
VTO services of the Chinese cosmeticbrand “Perfect.”
The research answers the following two research questions: (i)
to what extent do consumers accept and engage with brands’
VTO services in online shopping settings, and (ii) to what extent
does the engagement of VTO services add value to the TEE
process framework in the form of positive behavior? The results
reveal that perceived ease of use has a stronger impact on the
cognitive aspect of psychological engagement than perceived
usefulness. Similarly, the cognitive aspect of psychological
engagement has a more robust impact on behavioral engagement
elements (e-word of mouth and buying intentions) than the
emotional aspect. The study used an importance-performance
map analysis (IPMA) to identify the antecedents with high
importance for the target constructs, e-word of mouth and buying
intentions, which have relatively low performance. Furthermore,
the recommendations for brands in the short and long run are
provided with actionable insights on how they should enhance
consumers’shopping experience through VTO services.
Conceptual development
Augmented reality and virtual try-on
AR has been elevated as a key new-age technology in different
interactive application domains: gaming (Chatzopoulos et al.,
2017), human–computer interactions(Han et al.,2018),
manufacturing (Bottani and Vignali,2019) and retail (Bonetti
et al., 2018;Rejeb et al.,2023). The first time AR technology
reached the broaderpublic was in 2016 when Niantic launched
Pok
emon GO (Marelli et al.,2022). Consumers view AR as an
assistance and information resource that influences their
purchase decisions and experiences (Sung, 2021). The
increased use of smartphones made AR a pervasive marketing
tool; its integration influences consumers’behavior and assists
firms’activities, sales and services (Rauschnabel et al., 2019,
2022). AR leads to enhanced brand engagement, satisfaction,
shopping experience, decision-making and feedback (Hilken
et al.,2018;McLean and Wilson, 2019).
The fashion industry has been eager to adopt AR, yet
AR-applied VTO services are still struggling to be accepted
(Ivanov et al., 2022). VTO services, usually available as
smartphone apps, allow users to virtually try on products,
offering an experience similar to a physical store (Marelli et al.,
2022). Consumers that have a satisfying experience withVTO
services will likely reuse the service and/or buy the product/
brand (Bialkova and Barr, 2022). Moreover, VTOservices
experience influencesusers’perceived value in online shopping
(Lee et al., 2022) and service brand personality(Plotkina et al.,
2022). They can also influence consumers’decisions by
allowing them to play with idealistic looks of themselves
through a leisurely activity (Tawira and Ivanov, 2023).
However, VTO services have sometimes experienced lower
user acceptance (Riar et al., 2021) due to technological quality
disappointment (Plotkina and Saurel,2019). Yet, a newly
launched generation of VTO services offers a much more
accurate fit, allowing users, for example, to purchase or save
outfits on a wish list or share their new “looks”onsocial media
(Ivanov et al., 2022). For cosmetic brands, VTO service apps
are mainly conceived for make-up. For example, the AR- and
Technologyenabled engagement
Muhammad Zahid Nawaz, Francisco Guzm
an and Shahid Nawaz
Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 34 · Number 1 · 2025 · 44–60
45
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