Recent flocks are taking interest in the virtual world rather than the traditional world, as it will change the world. Virtual reality not only focuses on the theaters, shopping and education. It also helps to attract new customers. Most of the customers prefer to see a detailed of the product, which contain virtual video with the best color combination. When making purchases rich and engaging content is what makes a crucial difference between winning and losing.
The term V-commerce has been already coined for future endeavors. Companies like North face, Alibaba, Lowe’s use VR to boost their brands. The goal is to create virtual stores where a customer could choose and buy products.
The reality though of this virtual reality is that it’s not perfect yet. The Alibaba experience is a bit clunky, and the number of products available to buy is limited. However, technology moves at a pace, and VR is developing rapidly. Virtual human-computer interaction need for touch and tactile feedback to further enhance the experience. The virtual images are more fluid, volumetric video technology brings ever more realistic sense of texture and weight, and sound is now directional and reflects real-world acoustics. Haptics is bringing that elusive sense of touch and feel much closer. Headsets are becoming smaller, lighter, and more wearable.
So the technology will improve, and customer can able to immerse themselves in simulated realities that are far more compelling than even a real-world shopping experience.
Cut cost of marketing
VR in retail is predicted to cut marketing costs, reduce product returns and offer efficient analytics and data. Though, opinions are divided – some are enthusiastic and seeing VR as the future of retail, others think of it just as a trend that will pass away. Anyhow, retailers have been start looking into VR because of its sci-fi aspect that generates human interest. While the expense of VR isn’t necessarily prohibitive for major brands, it certainly doesn’t come cheap.
The next few years are a critical time for digital marketers hoping to reach an eager, previously-untapped VR audience, but that doesn’t mean it’s time for marketers rush in. Marketers’ concerns shouldn’t lie with costs or any sort of window closing on the VR opportunity, but instead on the innovation side.
Virtual reality acts as a 3D eyeball for the retail industries.
Owing to the criticality of this aspect, retail industry has shed its inhibitions from all kinds of possible experiments in this domain, the ultimate motive of all of them being the same – to establish a strong brand recall. While adherence to planograms, POSM compliance are hygiene for any retail brand to maintain, newer technology-driven practices are gaining ground gradually in this race to perfection.
Virtual Reality, for example, it was earlier considered as something limited to the boundaries of platforms like CES etc., today there are plethora of brands trying their hands at this technology to create a holistic multi-dimensional environment based user experience. Then there is interactive imagery channels developed through Hologram Technology, which can make any merchandise alive through holographic projections and give a spell-bounding OOH experience in the limited square feet area of the retail store. To satiate the human yearning of peeking further and further, retail brands are now-a-days going free hands with Translucent Display Technology. With this technology, a prospective buyer can see the merchandise and yet be involved in the advertisement via a dynamic and intuitive experiential display.
Technology has indeed reinvented the conventional visual merchandising realm- bringing about diametric changes in product launches, presentation and packaging. It has indeed broken the monotony of retail sales process and added an element of novelty to it.
There are plenty of such technologies which have now come out of the closets of global fairs, marketing-tech conferences etc. and have made their way to the prospective buyer who flocks the market for getting a whiff of what’s trending and what’s not even worth consideration. The trend is here to stay and will further enhance over time with more and more brands experimenting extensively in the domain. The extent of experimentation and the expertise in the domain is what commands an impact on the buyer behavior. The rules of this game are laid bare – utilizing that impact to leverage the impulse tendency of the consumers and eventually, converting a potential customer into an immediate buyer.
Industry adopted virtual visual merchandising
eBay has launched the world’s first virtual department store, an impressive feat of engineering cleverly promoted by offering thousands of customers free VR headsets called “shopticals.” As good as this virtual department store was, it lacked any of the real-world cues that immersive VR needs. It resembled more the white space simulation that Neo found himself in soon after swallowing the red pill in the “Matrix” film.
Alibaba has launched a much more real and immersive VR shopping experience in China. Customers get a chance to choose which city they want to shop in. After that click on the virtual heels and, suddenly, one get accessed to the store they want to visit and can purchase the material.
It works in the simplified way,
Simply customers have to look at the object in which they are interested in, and they can bring it up, and study it in glorious 3D, and decide if user wants to buy it or not. Developments in hands-free voice activation mean that one don’t need to leave this immersion into this virtual store to make choice and complete the payment.
