Reality Check

Virtual Reality (VR) has the potential to shake up the retail industry as we know it. Retailers can create unique and immersive customer experiences through this technology. Reseller ME speaks to regional players to examine the opportunities this can unlock for their businesses.

Virtual reality (VR) technologies have the potential to allow customers to walk into a retailer’s shop, half way across the world, and check out and purchase items, as they would in an actual store, without moving from their couches.

A Goldman Sachs report in 2016, outlined in one of its estimations of Augmented Reality (AR) and VR hardware and software adoptions over the next decade that it expects $80 billion in revenue by 2025 with $45 billion in hardware and $35 billion in software. Further, the report predicted that VR/AR retail would be worth $1.6 billion by 2025, with at least 33 million users.

Raghav Koorichh, consumer category and brand manager, UAE, Gulf and SELL, Dell, says that the VR industry is beyond the point of being a “new innovation” and has entered into a mature phase of its life when it comes to customer experience.

“This is because,” he explains, “VR technology has the potential to offer a greater level of emotional resonance to objects, through sensory impact and by creating deeper intimacy remotely. It is a flexible medium that provides easy and instant information accessibility pertaining to the customer’s preference in a user-friendly format. Also, VR technology can help create a compelling experience, allowing the customer to witness an array of real-time scenarios, eliminating the need to make judgements based on one-dimensional representation of an object.”

All of this together, enables improved and optimised customer experience, without the hassles of emotional engagement, understanding and tailor made product sales, he adds.

E-city’s marketing and retail development manager, Dirk Raemdonck, says that increasing number of companies are now leveraging this technology to empower their customers and provide them with a highly personalised and interactive experience in a “never-before-seen level”.