The number of metaverse users is expanding daily as the virtual economy has taken off, estimated to reach $800 million by 2024. From using cryptocurrencies as the legal tender in different worlds to cryptocurrencies based on respective meta worlds – the newest frontier has quickly taken on the capitalist garb. The forerunners of metaverse merchandising were fashion houses and gamers, surprising the world with the amount of money spent on these virtual artifacts. The brilliant immersive experience that VR provides is the ultimate marketing tool, with research showing that customer experience is more important than the product itself.
Given all these factors, the retail industry has become a lot more interested in the use of the metaverse to showcase its products. The Decentraland Fashion Street, a part of the meta world that is only dedicated to fashion retail, has already started selling virtual plots to companies for setting up their VR stores. Organizations have been using AR and VR for enhancing their customer experiences for some time but were unable to create a worldwide impact with these experiences. With the metaverse in retail, brands have access to an exponentially larger audience.
How does retail in metaverse work?
There can be many ways a retailer can leverage the metaverse to take their marketing game to the next level. As most fashion players are doing, they can create their stores on metaverse games such as Roblox, Decentraland, and Sandbox. With established user bases, companies can quite literally open shop and start issuing their own digital goods and merchandised NFTs.
Other ways to be a part of the metaverse can be by creating their own meta world. There are many VR solution providers who are creating metaverses for retailers. While a technological undertaking of this scale cannot be taken lightly, a huge benefit of owning and creating your own metaverse is complete data proprietorship; this data can further help retailers make better business decisions.
Metaverse is a natural extension of the applications of VR. With a limitless capability to build, corporations can create unique customer experiences to both sell virtual assets and market real-life products.
The Two Paths
Despite there being no limit to possibilities, there are broadly two schools of thought on how retail and shopping the metaverse will shape up. While one camp wants to design idealized but realistic shopping locations, the other wishes to explore the limits of imagination and create an exotic customer experience.
1. Metaverse malls
Shopping malls have been a major part of the urban condition up until two years ago. They represented a myriad of experiences all packed under one roof. With virtual reality, the same experiences can tune up as per the mall owner’s wishes – imagine extravagant malls with amusement parks, arcades, and zoos, all rolled into one.
Malls were popular as hangout spots among many generations because of the space’s community aspect. With so many different things to do, people enjoyed spending time in the mall with their friends, eating, window shopping, or simply hanging out by the courtyard. Even though the rise of eCommerce caused the decline of shopping malls, they couldn’t be made entirely obsolete.
In a metaverse, eCommerce companies can simply mimic the shopping mall and make it even more exciting – blending the retail experiences with social avenues. In the metaverse, problems that plague retail outlets in real life such as shortage of stock, non-availability of demo items or paucity of space simply would not exist. Haptic technology is well on its way to make clothing trials in virtual worlds feel fairly similar to a real trip to the trial room.
2. Shopping meta worlds
Instead of conventional retailing, shopping in the metaverse can be a lot more about the uniqueness of the experience. Marketers can design entire worlds about exploring just one product – such as a jacket store based in an arctic location. The ability to mold the world to anything a retailer desire gives them the unique ability to create the perfect branded experience. Going beyond that, some experiences can just be about leaving the audience in a state of awe.
Instead of malls, which are community and exploration-based attractions, shopping meta worlds can be geared to increase the excitement through gamification. Innovative ARVR experiences are not new, but the difference between an in-store VR installation and a metaverse is stark.
Companies can create immersive games for launching new products or even selling their own NFTs. This kind of shopping experience will be great for storytelling and creating excitement around brands. Through hidden prizes, launch teasers, and branded games, metaverse retail can create constant engagement for their customers.
As is with most technologies, they reach their zenith when they find consumer applications. This year has been amazing for the metaverse industry, from the Meta Keynote in October, to the multiple brand collaborations that have made a buzz around the world – all eyes are on the technology to come to fruition. With the entirety of big-tech, including the big four – Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta – heavily investing in the process, it is only a matter of time before metaverse in retail becomes a thriving worldwide operation.
