EXPRESS: Adoption of Virtual-Reality Headsets: the Role of Metaverse Trials for Consumers’ Usage and Purchase Intentions

Stand-alone virtual-reality (VR) headsets such as Meta’s Quest series enable highly immersive social experiences. As part of a trend toward a trillion dollar “metaverse,” a virtual social environment for which headsets constitute the major access device, these headsets have been predicted to grow the market for VR hardware substantially. Despite huge investments from companies, adoption of headsets has not reached the mass market yet. While some see the reason in the limited value that accessing the metaverse via VR headsets offers consumers, others blame the experience character of headsets as an adoption barrier. To shed light on this market shaping issue, this research introduces the concept of metaverse trials as a special case of consumer product trials in which consumers test VR headsets for engaging in direct experiences in virtual worlds together with others, and it explores how such a trial affects headset adoption. Using a sample of almost 100 participants of an extensive metaverse trial and a matched sample of non-trialists, the authors find trialists’ intention to use VR headsets in the future to be higher, while their intention to purchase VR headsets is lower. They also study determinants and outcomes of key facets of the metaverse experience.