How metaverses will transform both online and offline retail

While tech giants and IT startups are building their metaverses, retailers wonder how these digital universes will impact both online and offline retail. Let’s dive into details.

What is the metaverse?

The term “metaverse” was coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel “Snow Crash”. In Stephenson’s book, the metaverse is a virtual space that duplicates the real world where people can interact just like offline. The idea of the metaverse was illustrated in Ready Player One, a 2018 American science fiction adventure film based on Ernest Cline’s novel of the same name. Put simply, the metaverse is expected to become a place where people can do everything they do in real life: work, study, play, communicate with friends, attend events and buy items in the virtual environment.

Speaking of the metaverse for e-commerce, Cappasity demonstrated its vision of such a metaverse in its visionary video back in 2018:

In 2022, Cappasity will launch its metaverse for e-commerce, changing the way we consume content and demonstrate products. It will be the first immersive platform for businesses and consumers — all the content will be demonstrated exclusively in 3D and AR formats.

How will the metaverse impact online retail?

Offering the feeling of presence

What online retail has traditionally been criticized for is the lack of a physical experience. While shopping online, consumers can’t examine the items as they would in brick-and-mortar stores, try them on, and make an informed purchase decision. This peculiarity of e-commerce often leads to consumers’ disappointment when they get the item and, consequently, frequent returns. However, one of the fundamental characteristics of metaverses is the feeling of presence.

By entering a metaverse, consumers will interact with items in an experience that will further bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds. The most obvious use brands can get out of a metaverse is virtual fitting rooms. Consumers will have the opportunity to try on the desired items and check how they would fit in real life. Virtual fitting rooms will help brands lower return rates and increase online sales.

Cappasity’s metaverse for e-commerce will allow online customers to try on accessories and clothes virtually from the comfort of their homes.

To try on the item, click the Cube icon.

With Cappasity’s metaverse, brands will create virtual showrooms and demonstrate their items in an immersive format. As a result, brands will connect with consumers like never before and bridge the gap between offline and online shopping experiences.

Providing greater personalization

Personalization adds great value to the overall shopping experience. 63% of consumers say they won’t buy from brands with poor personalization. Yet personalization in e-commerce often stops at the point of discounts and product recommendations. With the advancement of metaverses, online retailers can now engage with online customers by pushing the boundaries of creativity with ideas that might be impossible in the real world. With the transfer of real items into virtual spaces, retailers can offer their clients a hyper-personalized shopping experience.

A great example of this is Nike’s step into the metaverse. Recently, the brand premiered NIKELAND on the gaming platform Roblox, an immersive space where the Nike community can participate in games and even create their own games using the NIKELAND toolkit. By providing consumers with greater personalization, the sportswear company will build much stronger emotional connections with the community.

Cappasity will provide utilities for integrating virtual apparel into metaverses. We’re going to become a technological gate from offline to online.

Opening new sales channels

With the metaverse, brands can sell both virtual and real products on a single platform. This opens up many business opportunities and transforms online retail. For instance, it allows brands to sell virtual products directly to users within the virtual world, which doesn’t require supply chain management. Additionally, brands can demonstrate real products virtually and then sell them to consumers in real life. In this case, the customer’s journey starts in the virtual world and ends in the real one. Direct-to-Consumer sales allow retailers to enter the market directly, without intermediaries.

In Cappasity’s metaverse, users will be able to visit brands’ showrooms and buy items using brands’ online stores.

Protecting items from counterfeiting

The boom in fakes comes as technology makes it easier to sell goods online. Recent statistics show that annual sales losses from counterfeiting in the clothing sector amounted to 26.3 billion euros in 2020. Some brands try to take steps and fight back. Nike, for instance, pulled its items from Amazon to cut down on fake goods. To gain their control back, retailers can leverage NFT technology, which is most likely to become the economic backbone in the metaverse. NFTs can guarantee the identity, origin, and other specifications of virtual and real items. Linking an NFT to a particular physical or digital item will help retailers protect their products from counterfeiting and minimize the damage from online counterfeit sales.

Cappasity’s platform will allow retailers to store the 3D data in NFTs and create immersive tokens easily and quickly. Proprietary utility token CAPP will be used in the provision of NFT services.

What is the future of offline retail?

While more and more companies are stepping into the metaverse, will brick-and-mortar stores lose their relevance? Though the metaverse will be a very appealing space for millennials and Gen Z, it doesn’t necessarily mean that consumers will abandon offline stores or prefer them less. However, many traditional brick-and-mortar businesses are already experiencing slow growth, and as we move towards the virtual world, this trend is likely to continue. That’s why retailers should adapt to current clients’ expectations to thrive offline. This may include providing omnichannel experience (keeping offline and online presence), experiential marketing, integrating new technologies into brick-and-mortar stores, etc.

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