You Can Already Shop in the Metaverse. But Does It Actually Feel Real?

siddhant rathourMarch 13, 20264 Mins read16 Views

Luxury brands like Gucci have opened stores in the metaverse. So have brands such as Louis Vuitton. Retailers including IKEA, Amazon, and Walmart are actively experimenting with augmented and virtual reality to transform how consumers shop.

By some estimates, the metaverse market could be worth over 01 trillion dollars by 2027. The technology exists. The investment is flowing. Yet one question remains surprisingly underexplored in discussions about AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour.

When a consumer steps into a virtual store, what actually makes them stay, explore, and engage?

That is the central question addressed in the research conducted by Prof. Fateh Mohd Khan, Assistant Professor of Marketing at FIIB, whose work examines emerging questions at the intersection of AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour and immersive digital commerce.

The Problem with Assuming Immersion Is Enough

Much of the conversation around metaverse retail assumes that immersion is automatically valuable. The thinking is simple: build a rich enough virtual environment and consumers will engage with it.

However, this assumption has rarely been tested systematically within the broader field of AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour.

What actually drives engagement in virtual environments?

Is it the visual detail within the environment? Is it the sense of being physically present inside a space? Or is it the perception that the virtual environment resembles reality closely enough to be trusted?

Another question is equally important: does the amount of time a consumer spends in that environment influence how they interact with it?

These questions have significant implications for brands and platforms investing in metaverse commerce. They also represent a growing research frontier within AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, where scholars are attempting to understand how digital environments reshape traditional consumer decision processes.

Prof. Khan’s study, co-authored with researchers from institutions across India, Qatar, and the United Kingdom, draws on survey data from 332 consumers who have experience with virtual shopping environments to examine these relationships.

What the Research Found

The study identifies metaverse richness as a central driver of consumer engagement. But the research goes further by unpacking what richness actually means in practice.

Two psychological pathways emerge as particularly important.

Understanding these mechanisms is critical not only for metaverse commerce but also for the broader study of AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, which increasingly focuses on how technology-mediated environments influence consumer decision-making.

Spatial Presence: Feeling Inside the Virtual Environment

The first pathway is spatial presence, which refers to the degree to which a consumer feels genuinely located within a virtual environment rather than merely observing it through a screen.

When a metaverse environment provides rich sensory and informational cues, consumers are significantly more likely to experience this feeling of presence. This sense of spatial presence has a measurable impact on behaviour.

Consumers who feel spatially present in a virtual store explore it differently from those who do not. They interact more frequently with products, spend more time navigating the environment, and engage with the space in ways that resemble the behaviour of shoppers in physical retail stores.

Within the broader research agenda on AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, spatial presence represents a key mechanism through which digital environments influence consumer engagement.

Realism: When Virtual Environments Feel Believable

The second pathway identified in the study is perceived realism.

Realism refers to the extent to which a virtual environment is perceived as credible and consistent with the consumer’s expectations of how objects and spaces behave in the physical world.

When metaverse environments are high in richness, consumers tend to perceive them as more realistic. That perceived realism increases engagement for a simple psychological reason: people interact more deeply with environments they find believable.

Insights like these are increasingly important for scholars studying AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, where digital simulations and intelligent systems are becoming central to consumer interaction.

The Role of Immersive Time

One of the study’s most important findings relates to immersive time — the amount of time consumers spend inside a virtual environment.

The research shows that immersive time strengthens the effects of both spatial presence and realism. In other words, time does not merely reflect engagement. It amplifies the psychological impact of the environment.

A consumer who spends more time within a well-designed virtual store does not simply become more engaged because of that time. Instead, the additional time deepens the effects of environmental richness, making the experience feel more present and more real.

From the perspective of AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, this highlights the importance of understanding how digital environments shape not just consumer choices but also the temporal dynamics of engagement.

What This Means for Retail and Brand Strategy

For retailers investing in metaverse commerce, the findings reframe a crucial design question.

The goal should not be technological spectacle alone. Instead, brands must focus on creating environments that provide meaningful informational depth and credible spatial design.

Many early metaverse retail experiments prioritised visual aesthetics while offering limited opportunities for interaction. Consumers could see products but could not engage with them in ways that replicate the evaluation process of physical shopping.

The research suggests that this gap may significantly reduce engagement.

As digital commerce evolves, these insights are becoming increasingly relevant for both practitioners and scholars studying AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, where the design of digital environments is emerging as a strategic driver of consumer interaction.

The Larger Question About Digital Consumer Behaviour

The study also contributes to a broader academic question: how does consumer psychology transfer to immersive digital environments?

Concepts such as spatial presence and realism have long been studied in traditional retail research. Prof. Khan’s work demonstrates that these mechanisms remain relevant in virtual environments as well.

However, they must be deliberately engineered through design choices rather than assumed.

For researchers working in the field of AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, this insight helps bridge the gap between traditional consumer psychology and emerging digital environments.

Implications Beyond Retail

The findings also raise questions that extend beyond retail strategy.

As virtual environments become increasingly sophisticated and consumers spend more time inside commercial digital spaces, the design ethics of these environments may become an important public policy issue.

An environment engineered to maximise spatial presence and immersive time is, by definition, an environment designed to capture and sustain consumer attention.

Understanding these dynamics is central to the evolving field of AI in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour, which increasingly intersects with questions about digital ethics, regulation, and consumer wellbeing.