## 2 Background  
The first VR experience within the retail field occurred in 1993, with the simulation of the shopping environment [15]. The main purpose was to provide a shopping environment and experience as close as possible to the real circumstance. Later, immersive aspects of VR and interactivity were investigated [16]. Other researchers explore how the virtual store affects customer behavior compared to the traditional store [17]. The latest research is related to the impact of VR on customer satisfaction, enjoyment, engagement, and acceptance in relation.  
[PERSON] et al. (2009) [18] argued that VR has a utilitarian component in fulfilling the needs and expectations of some consumers. Later on, [PERSON] et al. (2019) [19] consider that VR adopted by retailers also has an impact on improving the overall consumer experience by focusing more on the human senses. Indeed, as discussed in the literature, VR is a medium \"to meet the needs of users' sensorimotor channels\" [20]. By adopting this technology, users will feel immersed in a virtual world, exploiting the various senses such as touch, sight, and smell [21].  
[PERSON] et al. (2017) examine the potential of a relaxing in-store VR experience in a shopping mall to address the issue of crowding during shopping. The research allows retailers that at times suffer from high perceived crowding to provide a VR experience to shoppers as a remediating option to alleviate the negative effects of crowding on consumers and consequently diminish the negative consequences for the retailers [22].  
[PERSON] et al. (2020) present a VR-based application to support consultations in furniture stores [23]. The system allows customers to work out different configurations of a sofa with a sales expert and allows customers to experience them through immersive VR in a variety of VEs. While the sales expert can change the sofa layout and fabric, the customer can stay immersed and experience a real tactile feel of the configured sofa through passive haptic feedback provided by a sample piece that the customer can sit on.  
Figure 1: Our novel Multi-Sensory in-Store Virtual Reality Customer Journey: starting from a safer seated position, once confident, the customer can stand up and explore the product configuration.  
The metrics measured are subjective, such as the time of the experience (estimated by the users themselves), users' behavior and attitude toward new technologies, and the immersiveness and usefulness of the system. A preliminary field study in a furniture store shows that the system is immersive, conveying realistic impressions of the sofa configurations. In addition, customers perceive the VR configurator as useful as it would make their purchasing decisions easier.  
Recently, Virtual Reality Customer Journey (VRCJ) has been conceptualized as the use by businesses of interactive computer-mediated environments. VRCJ can offer sensory feedback to engage consumers, strengthen consumer-brand relationships, and drive consumers' desired behaviors at any stage journey [13]. The VRCJ framework suggests that sensory feedback affects all VR engagement dimensions. However, a broad, systematic understanding of VR's drivers and effects through the CJ remains poor [13].  
These aspects motivate our research to gain further insights into the user behavior related to a novel journey (i.e., MSISVRCJ) as an in-store implementation of a multisensory experience.