Accelerating Experiential Commerce in the Metaverse: A B2B perspective

INTRODUCTION

While at its inception, metaverse was thought to be a revolution in the gaming and entertainment space, the innovative concept has over time gone on to exhibit use cases that brands can leverage to deliver superior experiences.

More recently, the ecosystem comprising metaverse has been touted to be transformative and an enormous opportunity for e-commerce but suffice to say we’re only at the beginning of that journey.

Many of the constitutional components of metaverse such as artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and bots — are readily available today. And businesses, merchants are spending aggressively on them.

NEED OF ONLINE CONSUMERS: PERSONALIZATION, NOVELTY & FRICTIONLESS EXPERIENCES

E-commerce was premised on matching technology to recreate or mimic sensory and stimulating physical shopping experiences online.

This is driven by consumer psychology and research. For instance, 60% of people want to visualize how a product fits into their lives. AI, with advanced algorithms, can gauge buyer behaviors and patterns, dishing out suggestions based on the available inventory. Certain parameters that AI can look for are data from past purchases, browsing, geography, etc. AR/VR can then — effortlessly — provide a visualization in the context of the user’s environment.

REAL-WORLD APPLICATION

In fashion, several similar applications provide virtual try-on and sizing experiences. Trace Network Labs for instance provides a last detailed customized avatar-building app - Buddy.

In a similar vein, simple technology like FitFinder technology aids buyers in personalizing their sizing experience by harnessing the data of a brand or item they know fits them and using an algorithm to compare the measurements precisely. A couple of American retail players are offering VR renderings of their designs to customers on its website.

In summation, more advanced 3D modeling technology opens portals to a more inclusive shopping experience for buyers who don’t fit into stereotypical sizing. Merchants who add 3D modeling to their sites already see it.

EXPECTATIONS FROM E-COMMERCE IN THE METAVERSE

The fundamental change that metaverse can usher in is a reduction in return rates. The rationale for this is the same: by giving customers the opportunity to try out a product virtually before they even buy it.

This feature is especially useful for products where it is difficult to know how they look real or whether they fit into your own home, including products such as furniture, decoration, fashion, shoes, and cosmetics.

Virtual try-on offers manufacturers and suppliers to immediately measure how a new launch is taken to by customers. Research has shown that customers are even more willing to pay for products that can be tested using 3D or augmented reality technologies. This aspect is also guaranteed when shopping through the Metaverse and its advanced visualization options.

Greater engagement is another key plus for online retailers. Metaverse enables customer loyalty. An immersive and virtual marketplace makes it much easier and more numerous to build relationships with customers and prospects than in normal online trading.

THE NEXT STAGE IN E-COMMERCE

Online shopping was picking up a significant pace when the pandemic cooped up the masses into their homes. This coincided with the closure of retail outlets malls and offline stores. As a result, the adoption of e-commerce and online retail pick up like never before even if out of compulsion. Concurrently, businesses pivoted to an omnichannel strategy where even offline-only stores shifted to online retail.

And even as the masses embrace the new normal the next logical step in the retail transformation was e-commerce, social commerce, and experiential commerce driven by the metaverse.?

The metaverse is touted to play an important role in consumers' lives by making buying experiences and decisions more immersive, efficient, faster, and, above all, more innovative. As a result, the lines between social media and e-commerce are increasingly blurred. Community building fueled by the NFT industry is becoming increasingly important and the metaverse will prove itself as a potent means of interacting with brands and companies. The association between the physical and digital worlds will become blurred as new technologies continue to evolve until online shopping is eventually transferred entirely to the metaverse.

METAVERSE ADVANTAGES TO SHOPS AND SHOPPERS

1)?Widening the customer base?- Shopping on metaverse opens doors to a global audience and businesses can tap better insights into consumer behavior can also be gleaned.

2)?Cost savings & market penetration?- Showcase and retail of goods on metaverse not only make testing easier, but it also saves manufacturers potentially unnecessary production expenses. From this one quickly draw conclusions as to how far the market penetration of the product can and should go.

3)?Virtual-first paradigm?- Contemporary shopping models are Physical-to-Physical (P2P), Digital-to-Physical (D2P), and Virtual-to-Virtual (V2V). But the inception of metaverse has opened the possibility of making purchases from Virtual-to-Physical (V2P) and Physical-to-Virtual (P2V).

4)?Personification in the virtual world?- One of the biggest USPs for fashion brands in the metaverse is providing new products to digital twins of the customer, which would be the person’s unique 'avatar'.

This is called Direct-to-Avatar (D2A). D2A transcends traditional marketing by focusing on in-game personas to sell virtual goods, physical items, or real-world experiences. D2A is becoming a fast-growing market segment with an enhanced sense of connection to purchase digital goods that may or may not come with real-world counterparts. D2A can be leveraged by brands to sell V2V, P2V, and V2P.

LIVE EVENT ALERT - Click Here

Topic: Decoding the Metaverse: EXPERIENTIAL COMMERCE FOR BUSINESSES

Date & Time: July 26, 3:00 PM IST onwards

Register Here - https://forms.office.com/r/4jxsxC5rgr

Discover the possibilities that the metaverse opens in the sphere of experiential commerce.

Join Sunil Arora, Co-founder of Trace Network Labs and advisor to many an organization on leveraging metaverse to scale their business using metaverse in an insightful session.