The Role of Virtual Environment in Online Retailing: State of the Art and Research Challenges

The aim of the paper is to systematically analyse the effects of the online environment on customers’ behaviour in order to offer a first, comprehensive state-of-the-art of the research on this topic. By analyzing a final sample of 105 papers, 4 themes have been identified, according to the theoretical lenses adopted by scholars. Results show that the traditional stimuli–organism–responses approach (also known as S–O–R) is the most frequently applicable conceptual framework for the analysis of the effects of the online setting, and worth mentioning are the modifications to the original S–O–R model proposed by scholars, which allow considering the specificities of the online environment.