Virtual Reality Is the Future of Shopping
Online shopping is gaining traction – they are fast and delivered right to your doorstep, sometimes in the blink of an eye. But with online shopping, you’re missing out on the opportunity to walk into a store and pick up items. Enter the virtual reality of shopping, which tries to give you the convenience of online shopping and the feeling of being in a store.
People are already shopping through virtual reality, but it is still in its infancy. In late 2016, China’s Alibaba launchedBuy + , a virtual reality app that can be accessed using a virtual reality headset. With Buy +, people can wander the store, browse products, and add products to their cart, all while looking at the product for a long time. According to Vice , 30,000 people have already tried Buy + an hour after it launched.
To shop in VR, you’ll need a VR headset, which can range from $ 10 for Google Cardboard to hundreds of dollars for the Oculus Rift . As with shopping online, there is usually a virtual shopping cart, and you can shop by entering your credit card details at checkout.
Big companies like Amazon are also working on adding VR shopping in an effort to boost sales. In May 2016, Ikea allowed users to create their own kitchens using the HTC Vive. Audi has also used the HTC Vive to showcase vehicles at showrooms . Later in 2016, eBay Australia teamed up with Mayer to create “the first virtual reality department store,” but he mimicked a floating object network rather than a physical store.
Earlier this month, Ikea started using virtual reality in Australia. You can see it for yourself on Android, iOS, and on the desktop (although the desktop version doesn’t have VR).
Ikea’s virtual reality shopping version looks like a more immersive version of Google Street View . You can wander around the store and between furniture. You can select items marked with floating blue dots to reveal the item’s description and price. Most of the furniture isn’t tagged, however, so you’ll have to zoom in on the tags and remind yourself to look for it later.
Smaller companies like Gatsby , a virtual reality store startup, are also looking to create a virtual reality shopping experience.
“We’re really trying to get close to what it’s like to be there, and we want it to be very intimate,” said Anastasia Sifuentes, co-founder of Gatsby. “All the little details about how you move, we really focus on how to get it right.” Gatsby has been experimenting with virtual reality for less than 6 months, but hopes to launch the app in the fall.
Using the Gatsby shopping app to buy furniture is like a game. You can view the room from a fixed point (as long as you cannot move through space). There is a button that allows you to click on objects and rotate them. After selecting an object, information about the length, width, height and price of the object is displayed. If you need a product, you can add it to your cart.
The demo I tested was animated rather than based on real photographs, which made the process less realistic. The app is still in development, but Gatsby hopes to use real photographs of objects and rooms once the app is complete. Gatsby will be free for everyone – you only need something like Google Cardboard to view it.
“There is an efficiency factor that satisfies web presence, but we have lost something in traveling about this, namely the ability to hold on to the product,” Sifuentes said. “There are also things that we need to see and touch, for which we need to go to the store, such as furniture.”
Virtual reality does not fully replicate the personal shopping experience, but it is becoming a reality. It’s also getting cheaper and more affordable: now all you need is a smartphone and a $ 10 Google Cardboard set.