Reimaged hybrid shopping in Metaverse

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

“The metaverse is a completely new virtual world—just like social media presented a new CX channel 15 years ago,” says Sidharth Mukherjee, chief digital officer at Teleperformance, a global company that provides digitally integrated business services. “We’re starting to see metaverse adoption across industries like retail, consumer goods, and health care, in addition to social media, gaming, and the broader tech industry.”

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about businesses “migrating” to the metaverse, however this is a bit misleading. Brands are linking the metaverse to their conventional, two-dimensional channels rather than so much migrating into it. Nevertheless, it is impossible to emphasize how the metaverse may change the way that consumers and companies interact. The metaverse will revolutionize CX over the coming ten years, much like e-commerce did for retail in the 1990s and mobile did for social interactions in the early 2000s.

Hybrid Shopping in Metaverse

It’s just a few years from now, and you’re shopping for new sneakers. You get a mobile notification from your favorite retailer—a new collection of sneakers has been released. You promptly grab your VR glasses and step into a digital representation of the store, where you design your fully personalized shoes, complete with custom colors. An AI avatar joins you to support answering all your questions along the way. Ultimately you hit Buy and uses your connected credit card linked to your account. Few mins later you receive the confirmation mail in your email and get the exact same pair digitally.

Preview Vacation destinations

There are equally intriguing use cases for the metaverse in the context of CX. A travel agency could showcase destinations via 3D “vacation previews” that provide enticing teasers of exotic locations and show sneak peek of what they may see when they head to those destinations.

Real estate

Already a decent number of interior design studios provide a 360 view for apartments to give a virtual tour for selling apartments to increase the rate of viewing the apartments. Ideally would be even better if you would go and check out the balcony view or walk around to get a better sense of dimensions.

The metaverse means different things to different people. Some believe it’s a digital playground for friends. Others think it has the potential to be commercial space for companies and customers.

Here are some real-world examples of metaverse applications

• For entertainment, you might attend a virtual concert or event: Lil Nas X performed in online gaming platform Roblox during the pandemic, for example.

• Commerce is shifting as we head into virtual spaces and shared experiences. According to McKinsey research, around 79 percent of consumers active on the metaverse have made a purchase, mainly to enhance their online experience. Virtual-to-virtual commerce—for instance, when a Fortnite player uses V-Bucks to make in-game purchases—is fairly common. Physical-to-virtual transactions are also being explored; toy company L.O.L Surprise! developed card packets with QR codes that can be scanned to unlock NFTs and virtual experiences.

• In healthcare, AR displays were recently used to perform surgeries on live patients at Johns Hopkins Hospital, helping its Neurosurgical Spine Center to execute tasks better than ever.

• Educational providers are creating coursework and materials that give teachers new ways to express and participate in classrooms; imagine that instead of building a papier-mâché model of a volcano you could virtually experience being the magma that’s ejected into the atmosphere.

• In heavy industries and other contexts, VR is being applied to help teach people new vocational skills, such as repairing trucks or other equipment—in some cases shortening training time considerably. And in field operations, people are using AR for remote assistance, which could be even more interesting as organizations begin to use the data generated from this process.

• In fashion and luxury, brands have made inroads. Take, for instance, Decentraland’s Metaverse Fashion Week in March 2022, which received significant industry attention and attracted brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Estée Lauder, and Etro. The Gucci Garden, launched in 2021 in the Roblox gaming metaverse, saw 19 million visitors. Or consider new business models for virtual fashion, for instance, built around technology allowing for online showrooms or for 3-D virtual runways.

• NFTs, still in their very early days, represent a new asset class in financial services, with some reports that loans have been collateralized based on NFT value, and other forays into the space beginning.

• Metaverse concepts could also help build more efficient and productive operations. Take the example of BMW, which has an all-electric vehicle production line that ran as a simulation for six months. Virtual cars were built on a one-to-one scale in the metaverse before the factory’s final layout was determined.

Sources

• https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-the-metaverse?stcr=2442059EAF68499E914899E0CA2B7AA2&cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=3d7655c3a3b74699a8e2a06e0894e341&hctky=11814925&hdpid=5e7643b3-afc5-4a20-a0b3-253b7e3390ec
• https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/09/12/1058144/embracing-cx-in-the-metaverse/