Are Retailers Ready for Shift to Virtual Reality Shopping?

the world turned even more towards online shopping and all retailers who could turn towards e-commerce to avoid losing customers.

17:52 16 August 2021

According to the Statista website, in 2020, global e-commerce retail sales were $ 4.28 trillion, and e-commerce revenues are projected to grow to $ 5.4 trillion in 2022. Online shopping is one of the most popular online activities worldwide. These days, even the possibility to pay with cryptocurrencies has appeared where platforms, including safetrading,  their value, and rates.  

 

Obviously, after the pandemic, the world turned even more towards online shopping and all retailers who could turn towards e-commerce to avoid losing customers.

 

This turnaround was so rapid that not everyone could immediately understand how to quickly and efficiently create their e-commerce site or establish a remote sale of their goods. Many retailers are still struggling to integrate mobile devices into their strategies, even as technological innovation is accelerating. As a result, many retailers will not be ready to move to virtual reality.

 

Internet of things

Forbes writes that the Internet of Things is the concept of connecting any device with a switch on and off to the Internet (and to each other). The Internet of Things is another area that is rapidly evolving as Amazon is pushing for the need to restock supplies at home. And the rest of the retailers follow.

 

At the same time, retailers have to spend time and money sorting out many new innovative solutions and opportunities to determine where to focus their limited resources.

 

VR shopping

Virtual reality is essential for shopping. That said, shoppers can be at home, sitting on the couch and wearing a headset to go shopping. Many companies are already developing these solutions and are working with renowned retailers in various sectors to create their own VR space.

 

There is also some difficulty here for retailers: for the VR environment to explore the world of commerce, you need to create content for VR. Previously, it was pretty expensive, but now the cost is decreasing, and there are more opportunities. It also needs people to recognize that VR is a convenient way to represent and test future purchases.

 

Today retailers are trying to order custom software development in such a way as to ensure themselves and create a VR environment for their sales.

 

The bigger picture

 

The impact of technology here is one area that retailers are paying more attention to

 

AR in physical stores.

 

Augmented reality devices allow companies to post additional content and additional information to their stores. As a result, they can offer a new level of in-store interaction and engage consumers.

 

A shopper walks into any particular store, grabs an AR headset, and starts wandering around. When they look at items, description fields pop up to tell them more about what they are looking at. These features extend the shopping experience beyond mere reality; it is an enhanced version of reality and an immersive experience.

 

Online sales continue to grow, and this growth is impossible to miss. According to the report, retailers are slowing down a bit and are looking at how e-commerce fits into the big picture of their operations and other systems.

 

As e-commerce grows, do retailers continue to fill orders from existing stores or open dark stores dedicated to e-commerce?

 

As the physical and digital worlds merge, retailers need to be aware of the growing change in brick-and-mortar stores.

 

What to do?

Suppose you already own a physical store and are thinking about selling your products over the Internet. In that case, you can order the development of your website or hire custom mobile app development to develop a mobile application for your store and get new experiences and new customers by integrating modern technologies into your store.

 

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Author’s bio: Anastasiia Lastovetska is a technology writer at MLSDev, a software development company that builds web & mobile app solutions from scratch. She researches the area of technology to create great content about app development, UX/UI design, tech & business consulting.