More than a third of consumers say they would shop for more products online if they were able to try them virtually using headsets, and 63 percent say they expect virtual reality to impact their shopping experiences in the future
Virtual reality or augmented reality market is set to grow further, with previous projection by Digi-Capital saying the market could reach only $150 billion by 2020.
Commerce itself has been moving along waves of technological revolution like Internet and mobile phones and thus it is likely that Virtual Ecommerce will be the next wave of e-commerce
“There is a strong possibility that Virtual Tour Ecommerce can be the next step in the evolutionary change of commerce. “In all likelihood I think that Virtual Tour Ecommerce will actually compliment e-commerce by providing an even better virtual shopping experience.”
For instance, when buying a house, if you might normally visit 20 houses before making a decision, you might visit a few more houses in virtual reality, then visit just your top three in in the real world. Or when buying a car, you might take a few more on a virtual test drives then you would in real life before zeroing in on the one you want.
Most businesses are not yet ready to take advantage of the technology, Woo Digital 360 has deployed A few months ago a new integration showing how is that possible and easy to beggin in this technology.
however, although virtual commerce is set to become very popular due to popularity of mobile commerce and virtual reality hardware becoming cheaper, it is not likely to completely replace Ecommerce, but most of the aspects of Ecommerce will succumb to virtual commerce.
A number of brands have developed or announced upcoming applications that allow users to have virtual shopping experiences including virtual immersive tours, virtual training, virtual store navigation, and virtual walkthoughs of real estate spaces, and virtual product testing experiences.
Other brands have created or announced upcoming platforms that allow users to customize and buy digital products from virtual stores, as well as customization, uploading and selling of third party virtual reality content.
But most of the currently available virtual reality branded content is virtual reality marketing and sales videos and applications, rather than fully-functional virtual stores.
In future, we could expect virtual reality merchandising tools that come with integrated analytics so that they can allow incorporation of customer intelligence in virtual reality shopping. More companies are likely to take advantage of virtual reality guided navigation, search options, easy and quick to use checkouts, which are set to yield real benefits in increasing e-commerce sales.
Personalized selling
Personalization is the act of bringing a product to the customer at the right time and when they need it, and mobile gadgets are very effective in achieving it. Already, we are seeing a lot of personalization and customization of advertising and marketing campaigns and that is expected to grow.
Mobile commerce is already a very integral part of e-commerce today, especially with the popularity of smartphones and now the coming portable virtual realty headsets.
Advertising and guided selling
The entry of influential brands such as Facebook and YouTube accelerate virtual reality technology adoption, content creation and content consumption.
After allowing uploading and streaming of 360 degree videos, Facebook last month introduced 360-degree ads, including video ads from AT&T, Nestlé and other brands. YouTube has also launched 360-degree virtual reality videos and a virtual movie theater for all YouTube videos, which supports Google Cardboard-compatible devices
