Virtual Reality is no longer a novel exiting concept in the gaming world, it is reshaping traditional industries. From virtual real estate tours to healthcare surgeon simulations, VR’s has shown its transformative potential to revolutionize industries. By offering a three-dimensional simulated environment where users are immersed and able to interact with each other, the experience becomes unique, realistic and believable. This enhanced interaction and experience is extending to the retail sector as well.
Currently many stores are experimenting with AR in their stores. For example, L’óreal Paris has a make-up simulator for a virtual makeup try-on to prevent spillage of make-up products. Zara and Nike are exploring with enhance the customer experience (Sripathi, M., & Bhuvaneswari, T., 2022). But what is more interesting to consider for retailers, even with the advancements AR has brought to the retail experience, is the possibility of VR to eventually be a feasible replacement for the brick-and-mortar stores by switching from AR to VR.
One of the first adoptions of VR completely taking over the concept of the physical store is Buy+. Buy+ from Alibaba was released in 2016 during the annual Singles Day shopping festival and It allows customers to shop in virtual reality, pay with Alipay, and inspect items in 360 degrees from their homes (Feng, J., 2021). Research implies that VR shopping encourage impulsive shopping behavior and increases the hedonic shopping value (Alzayat, A., & Lee, S. H. M., 2021). Although this concept has not been revolutionizing yet, it is a step towards an futuristic immersive shopping experience. As VR technology enhances, it becomes more widely adopted and accessible for people, it has the potential to reshape the current retail industry.
What do you think is it just a matter of time before we get rid of the physical stores and replace it with virtual stores or will the physical stores always exist in our shopping habits?
References
Alzayat, A., & Lee, S. H. M. (2021). Virtual products as an extension of my body: Exploring hedonic and utilitarian shopping value in a virtual reality retail environment. Journal of Business Research, 130, 348-363. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296321001703
Feng, J. (2021). Research on the influence of VR scenarios in online shopping on consumer impulsive purchase behavior: The perspective of flow experience. International Journal of Business Marketing and Management, 6(8), 51-57.http://www.ijbmm.com/paper/Aug2021/8340436268.pdf
Sripathi, M., & Bhuvaneswari, T. (2022). Role of augmented reality (AR) in marketing. Emerging Trends in Business, Commerce & Management, 1.https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Devika-Prakash-4/publication/378858975_Increased_Use_of_UPI_Transactions_A_Comparative_Study_Before_and_After_the_Pandemic/links/65ee4041b1906066b28c2c6c/Increased-Use-of-UPI-Transactions-A-Comparative-Study-Before-and-After-the-Pandemic.pdf#page=5
Hi Moos,
Thank you for your blogpost, I really enjoyed reading it!
As a lover of shopping, I am very interested in this topic. To answer your question, I believe physical stores are still an essential part of a shopping experience. It is also very dependent on the product you are shopping. For example, for clothes from a low price company, a physical store might not be necessary. However, when I want to buy a bag from Louis Vuitton, I want to go to a physical store to see the material with my own eyes, to touch the bag and to see how it looks in real life. I believe neither VR or AR will be able to replace that experience.
I am curious to see the shift in the future from AR to VR. In my opinion, AR in the retail industry is not optimized yet. You mentioned the use of AR by L’Oreal Paris in terms of makeup. I have used this and it still doesn’t work well unfortunately. I hope VR can do this better.
Again, your blogpost was very interesting!
I enjoyed reading your article and believe this is a highly engaging topic to explore. I strongly believe that innovative technologies like AR, and potentially even VR, will significantly shape future shopping experiences. However, I view them as complementary enhancements rather than replacements for physical stores. A good example is Nike, which shifted its strategy during the COVID crisis by cutting ties with long-standing retail partners. This move created opportunities for competitors like Adidas to fill the gap, resulting in Nike losing significant market share. This example highlights that, despite rapid technological advancements, consumers still value the physical shopping experience — one that could ultimately be enhanced by modern technologies. If you’re interested, here’s an article about the Nike case: https://www.theglobaltreasurer.com/2024/07/10/nike-faces-unprecedented-stock-plunge-amid-strategic-missteps/
Hey, your topic caught my attention at first glance and it is a very interesting societal question that many people must have considered. To answer that question, I think we have to consider the differences between the two types of shopping experience and the unique value of shopping in a physical store.
In my opinion, convenience and time-saving are the most obvious advantages of shopping online because you can just click on the screen and receive your things via delivery. However, shopping offline has some unique characteristics that shopping online cannot substitute for. The first is socialization. Although not everyone enjoys social events, this is still crucial for someone else and they love interacting with others face-to-face. Although VR devices could make virtual interaction vivid in the future, I am still wondering if it can stimulate a similar situation where random customers can go in and go out and people can have random conversations if they like. The second one is service, which enhances the shopping experience. Take the luxury industry for example, a part of the exorbitant price includes meticulous services. I am not so sure that their target customers are okay with the new virtual experience.
In summary, I believe the number of physical stores will decrease, but they will not vanish.