By PAGE Editor

Online shopping is incredibly convenient, and it allows customers to browse and compare many products in a short space of time. 

The majority of buying journeys begin online. Even when people head to a physical store to purchase their goods, they have often researched them online first.

That kind of convenience is necessary in our busy modern world. People often don’t have the time (or maybe even the transport) to get to a physical store and see products in person.

For brands selling products that really do need to be seen (and even trialled) in situ, this can be a problem. Furniture showrooms, real estate agencies, and even car showrooms ideally need customers to come and experience their products in the flesh. Or do they?

With the rise in VR technology, more brands are building virtual showrooms. These allow customers to step into the ‘room’ with their products and experience them in situ, from every angle, without leaving their own houses. Virtual reality simulations could even, one day, allow customers to take cars for a virtual test drive.

Brands are using virtual showrooms to enhance the customer experience and build customer satisfaction in several ways. Let us tell you how XR technology is changing the retail industry to improve the customer experience and boost engagement.

What is a virtual showroom?

A virtual showroom is a way for brands to showcase their products in the digital world. They offer an immersive, 3D experience created using AI, ARQ, and sophisticated graphic technology.

To explain the concept, let’s take a step back to the 1950s. This may feel counterintuitive, but bear with us!

In the early 20th century, furniture was either made bespoke or bought from antique stores, junkshops, and market stalls. You had to have a good eye to envisage how any particular piece would look in your house. 

Then, in the 50s, furniture makers like IKEA began displaying their wares in showrooms designed to show how their products would look in a domestic situation. Now, customers could step into a realistic room and walk around, seeing how each piece looks, where it fits, how it works, and so on. It was revolutionary.

Virtual showrooms bring that revolutionary experience into the digital world. Rather than scrolling through catalogues of products and reading lists of specifications, customers can see each product in a virtual room. They can virtually ‘walk’ around and get an immersive feel for the size of the products, their shape, texture, color, and more. It’s just like a real showroom - only online.

AR brings products into the customer’s world

AR (Augmented Reality) turns the customer’s own home into the showroom. Using AR technology, customers can use their phones to bring a virtual version of the item into their environment. 

AR superimposes a 3D, digital version of an item into a viewscreen. For example, if you wanted to see what a sofa would look like in your living room, you could use your phone’s camera to put an AR version of the sofa in the right spot. 

By looking through your camera viewscreen, you could see exactly how the sofa would look in your room, how well it would go with your decor, whether or not it would fit, and more.

This is very convenient for customers. It removes the need to bring colour swatches and measuring tape into stores. It shows the customer exactly what they want to see, and it does it in seconds. 

IKEA’s Place app uses AR to place virtual products in customers’ homes, and it has proven extremely popular.

Fashion brands engage personally with customers in virtual showrooms

Clothes shopping may not seem like the obvious choice for a virtual experience. After all, trying clothes on is often an essential part of the process and the virtual world still can’t provide that kind of facility (well, not entirely. More on that in a bit!)

However, fashion brands like Tommy Hilfiger and retailers like H&M have experienced great success with virtual showrooms. 

A virtual showroom doesn’t get messy, can serve customers very quickly, and allows brands to display their wares to the best advantage for very little cost.

AI tech can also ‘recognise’ customers individually when they enter the showroom. A virtual assistant can greet them by name, and direct them to products they may like based on past purchases and behaviour. 

Customers can also ask questions within the virtual showroom without having to queue up at customer services or struggle to catch the eye of a real-life assistant. 

All in all, a virtual showroom provides customers with a shopping experience that is not just immersive. It’s also highly relevant for the customer and personalised to their needs. 

Customers can even try on outfits in a virtual showroom, to a degree. Online showrooms can’t entirely replicate the experience of trying on clothes - customers can’t feel the texture of the fabric, or see how well it fits, for example, but they can see which colour combinations work best with an avatar designed to look like them.

VR allows engineering brands to safely demonstrate products

Large-scale engineering products can’t always be bought from an online catalogue. Ideally, customers need to see the products in action.

However, it isn’t always safe or possible to build working prototypes and show them to customers in the flesh. For example, locomotive engineers can’t build and run an entire locomotive for a prospective client - the space constrictions and costs would be prohibitive.

In VR, however, anything is possible.

Balfour Beatty Rail uses VR at all stages of their process, from planning to presentation. This allows them to demonstrate products from every angle and put them through their paces without the expense of building physical prototypes.

This is also useful for dangerous products, which can’t be experienced in the flesh. Brands can show how the product works without having to expose customers to dangerous gases, or temperatures, or environments.

VR showrooms are the future of customer experience

When they’re built well, virtual showrooms can revolutionise the customer experience. They allow customers to view products from the comfort of their own homes - and even bring those products into their homes via AR. 

Virtual showrooms can also save brands a huge amount of time and money by enabling them to demonstrate products without having to create prototypes. This can even make the shopping experience safer as well as easier, especially in the case of engineering products and projects.

Perhaps best of all, virtual showrooms can give customers a personalised shopping experience. Virtual assistants can greet customers by name, lead them to the kinds of products that fit their taste, and give them a personally curated experience. 

As relevance and personalisation become more and more important to the customer experience, this is something that brands should think hard about.

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