The emperor’s new clothes : self-explorative engagement in virtual try-on service experiences positively impacts brand outcomes

Purpose Virtual try-on (VTO) technology offers an opportunity for fashion and beauty brands to provide enriched self-explorative experiences. The increased popularity of VTOs makes it urgent to understand the drivers and consequences of the exploration of styles in VTO contexts (herein called self-explorative engagement). Notably, little is known about the antecedent and outcomes of the personalized self-explorative experience central to VTOs. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap. Design/methodology/approach An online quasi-experiment (N = 500) was conducted in the context of fashion and beauty VTOs. Participants were asked to virtually try on sunglasses or lipsticks and subsequently…