Compulsive Buying Behavior in Virtual Worlds: An Exploratory Study | Original Article

ABSTRACT:

Virtual worlds are growing in popularity and importance swiftly. It is almost like an alternative existence of human beings where they spend hours for networking and communications. With the growing importance of digital world, millions of people spending more time in the digital media than in their real-world. Though there are several studies have been done in this field, the majority of the research works are focused on the legal and economic issues related to the virtual world. There is a serious lack of literature on the negative aspects of the virtual worlds. Previous research has shown that the compulsive buying behavior of consumers has some significant impact on the social, familial, and individual well-being of people. However, the majority of these research works are concentrated on the consumer behavior in the real-world situations and very papers are available on the consumer behavior in the virtual worlds which is not sufficient to explore all important aspects of consumer behavior in the virtual worlds. The present research work is designed to be the first to focus on the compulsive buying behavior in the virtual worlds. Here, we will see the applications of the established scales of reference.