Would the typical consumer be interested in trying on clothes in a virtual reality (VR) setting? To me, it seems like a lot more work to put on a headset and walk around a store looking for pants than it would be to just click through some pictures. However, not everyone is in agreement, especially those who intend to make a living in the virtual reality retail sector.
Here we have Emperia, a “immersive” retail startup that has, to its credit, already created virtual stores for brands like Bloomingdale’s, Dior, Ralph Lauren, and Lacoste. In 2019, the business was founded on an idea by one of its co-founders, Olga Dogadkina, who had experience in high-end retail.
“It became clear to me that while e-commerce was the future of retail, 2D websites were merely a tool that enabled an online purchase through a simple grid of images and text,” Dogadkina told TechCrunch in an email interview. Emperia was created by Simonas Holcmann and myself to “bridge the gap between the transactional nature of an e-commerce purchase and the personalised shopping experience brands can cultivate in store.”
The Emperia platform features a number of tools for developing VR experiences, such as virtual reality shops. It works with your current e-commerce and inventory management software to keep tabs on customer profiles, store activity, and product purchases. Using Emperia, companies can host live events in which hosts lead attendees through a virtual world, or they can create unique exhibits and displays based on 3D models and photos of actual stock.
Virtual reality headsets are not required for “visitors” to Emperia’s virtual spaces. This platform works on desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices without the need for any additional software or apps to be downloaded.
According to Dogadkina, “using technology, Emperia aims to make virtual worlds into the future of e-commerce, expanding the reach to new and future online shoppers, increasing brand loyalty, and creating a completely new shopping experience.” To paraphrase Emperia’s website, “Emperia works directly with retailers’ heads of e-commerce, solving user experience, data analysis, and online engagement issues they’ve been struggling with since the inception of e-commerce by providing a new solution that leverages virtual worlds’ ability to equate and exceed the in-store customer experience and appeal to new target audiences, who use mobile devices as getaway to retail.”
Emperia gathers a great deal of information, including personal details that some consumers may feel uneasy about disclosing. Despite on-device de-identification, research shows that many VR and “metaverse” platforms still record personally identifiable information.
To provide brands with “visibility over how users are navigating and engaging in [their] virtual spaces,” Dogadkina claims that Emperia only collects engagement, transaction, and demographic data. Her claim that the information is not personally identifiable is backed up by the fact that it is only kept for “a limited time,” as required by the General Data Protection Regulation.
Dogadkina claims that improved personalization tools and additional verticals are in the works for Emperia. The startup is also exploring the potential of machine learning, particularly with regard to the production of visuals and 360-degree videos for use in product demonstrations.
“This is a nascent industry, and so there is a lot of both market and user education involved in introducing people to this technology and making sure brands can capitalise on its potential,” Dogadkina said. Due to the immaturity of the retail sector, businesses in this area have to investigate a wide variety of options in order to construct and style their virtual environments. Despite the abundance of available options, such as data, security, 3D modelling, and digital tokens, as well as a wide range of metaverse platforms, each with their own audience and set of capabilities, integrating them can be a challenging task. So that’s why we’ve been working to consolidate complementary solutions in one place.
Is there a future for VR, and is shopping in VR becoming popular?
This could be the case. A PwC report from August 2022 found that 32% of consumers had tried a VR app within the previous six months, and that among those people, 32% had made a purchase after first experiencing the product in VR. The percentage of Americans planning to use virtual reality and augmented reality while shopping was roughly 37% in a November 2022 survey of over 2,000 consumers.
In contrast, a September Deloitte survey found that only 5% of U.S. internet users were expected to shop in VR before the 2022 holiday season. One of the earliest social applications of virtual reality, AltspaceVR, was recently sunsetted by parent company Microsoft, highlighting the pressure platform developers face.
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Dogadkina is putting her faith in the optimistic forecasts, and she may be justified in doing so. Emperia has 45 customers in industries like fashion, beauty, luxury apparel, and sports despite competition from companies like Obsess and ByondXR. Furthermore, it has attracted a $10 million Series A investment led by Base10 Partners and including Daphni, Sony Ventures, Background Capital, Stanford Capital Partners, and Concept Ventures.
The current Emperia staff of 40 is expected to double to 120 by the end of the year. “The pandemic unquestionably accelerated awareness amongst retailers of what immersive, tech-powered e-commerce experiences could do and the role they could play in their sales strategy,” Dogadkina said. Unlike the temporary, campaign-based virtual space of yesteryear, today’s “flagship virtual store” is meant to be up and running for the foreseeable future. Since the virtual store is an entirely new experience, distinct from the physical store environment, it presents a genuine opportunity to broaden the brand’s appeal to shoppers of the future, retailers are now much better equipped to create and maintain such spaces.
