Top Reasons Why You Should Adopt Virtual Reality Now
Virtual reality — a simulated experience that can be similar to or completely different from the real world — has been known for applications in education and, mostly, gaming. Even though it is still far away from being widely used, I am really looking forward to the VR industry and how it will change society. There are other technologies that are certainly more popular and important for marketers and businesses to learn or use immediately, such as AR, AI, messenger bots, etc. However, VR has germinated and used in a couple of industries mentioned above. I want to suggest two good usages that I believe will happen when VR is widely used.
Virtual Shop
One big idea of using VR for business is the virtual shop. Imagine people can look at the products, play them, and purchase them without going to the real store. At the moment, we only have online shopping where people can know about the products via the pictures and descriptions. And in some cases, these pictures are fake ones. With VR, consumers will be able to have next-level interactions with the products, servers, and shopping experiences. Think of this, when you are looking for a dining table on Amazon (which I think will most likely be the first retailers adopting VR), you’d be able to look at all the angles you want. Not just pictures or a description telling you what the size is, you can legitimately have a better understanding of the size by walking around the product. If you didn’t like the color, you could just walk to another dining table nearby as if you are really there. The whole walking-among-aisles-experience is still there. Fun thing is, you finish the whole shopping trip at home.
Setting up A Campaign
As a marketer, I have to talk about this benefit. When marketers want to set up a campaign, after perennial brainstorming, planning and discussing, they would always face this question. For example, how would my pop-up store be looked like when it’s really out there. Honestly, no one knows. Fortunately, in the near future, the problem will be resolved when marketers can simulate a pop-up through VR. By putting the numbers and data in it, VR can give you a more complete report on what the pop-up store would be like, without going to the actual place. At the same time, you can adjust as many times as you wish.
Pros vs. Cons
For a technology like this, there has to be pros and cons. Pros, as mentioned above, are that consumers can have a better and easier shopping experience while they can spend less time and effort into it. Disadvantages are the high cost for consumers, lack of technology for retailers and susceptible to be dishonest. Since the minimum requirement to use this service is that consumers must have a VR. A regular VR price is about $349 or plus. Not every consumer has the capability of buying one. It is like when iOS system or App Store was first launched. VR is a little expensive for regular consumers to own. Therefore, unless the price and quality are whole lot cheaper or reasonable, businesses won’t be able to utilize the advantage of VR. Another disadvantage is retailers might be lack of this technology. Since this technology is not easily designed, retailers tend to have a difficult time adopting VR. Even they have enough investments to purchase VR and related systems and support. They still lack knowledge about how to fix it when there’s a bug or something is just not working. Even if they can solve the problems just mentioned above, the producers’ honesty could be an issue. Since the images perceived by consumers are supposed to be uploaded by product sellers, their honest will determine the honesty of this market. In the digital world right now, we have seen a lot of frauds, fake pictures, and false products. When it comes to the VR world, there will also be the same problem. How to determine the authentication of the products on VR will be a serious issue in the future.
Fad or Trend?
I believe this will definitely be the trend. Like iPhone when first launched, people were all over it. On the news or social media, people are always talking about how good it is and how convenient it is to human life. Same as VR, when it’s getting popular, people will be all over it, discussing all kinds of different usages of this product, potential monetizing strategies, and how it will harm humans.
Key Takeaways
- Try it: get a few VRs and try them out
- Test it: build a potential system around your VR service
- Think it: think about how you can utilize this technology and potential cons
- Stay on top of it: be aware of the updates and news about VR
- Update it: update your system based on updates about VR
- Be the pioneer: publish it when you feel the market is mature enough
There will be no blogs until mid-January since I will be on a trip to Peru and Bolivia.
Early Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
TC
