Like being there: How the soft VR technology could change consumers' initial decision-making

With the sweeping wave of digital transformation, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has become one of the key technologies for building the metaverse with its characteristic of lifting the physical interaction restrictions between people and things, which has attracted the extensive attention of scholars and practitioners. However, the VR industry is gradually evolving from traditional device-based hard VR to soft VR, where the market is larger but less researched. Additionally, although most businesses have high expectations for the potential of VR technology, little is known about whether a huge investment in VR will deliver the expected returns. The objective of this study is to explore whether and how soft VR technology can play a significant positive role in promoting consumers' initial decision-making. This study collected and empirically analyzed the data of 51,495 online second-hand condominiums on an online platform for housing transactions and services. The results show that the soft VR technology can significantly increase consumers' attention to the product and prompt their initial decision-making. Moreover, it is interesting that the enhancement effect of soft VR technology will show an equilibrating trend due to the different features of the search products. This study contributes to scholarship and practice by initiating the study of the emerging phenomenon of soft VR and empirically testing its effect on consumers' initial decision-making.