Have you heard of something called the metaverse? Sorry, I am just kidding – of course you have – because you haven’t been living under a rock for the last 18 months! However, while you may have heard of the term it’s just as likely that you’ll only have a vague grasp of what it is and how it might be useful to you. In that regard you’d be in step with 99.99% of people on the planet. There’s been quite a bit of negative news coverage about the metaverse in recent weeks with much of it focusing on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta business (formerly Facebook). In reality the concept of the metaverse is so much wider than just this one business and opinions on the metaverse range from comparing it to the early days of the internet (that will develop to achieve their potential) to the wild west (lawless, saloons with pianos and dancing girls – you get the picture).
There’s obviously a great deal of hype about the metaverse, its potential applications and the impact it will have on our everyday lives not least in the fashion and clothing sectors. Many brands such as Gucci and Nike have hosted metaverse events or acquired real estate to set up their flagship metaverse stores. Is this a genius piece of future gazing or just the waste of a gargantuan sum of money on the emperor’s new clothes? Only time will tell as the landscape is still so new and changeable, but we do have our own thoughts on this topic.
One definition of the metaverse is: ‘a network of interconnected 3D worlds where your virtual embodiment can socially interact with other users and items in that world and extend through portals to other real-world existences’ and, though we did not set out to create a ‘meta’ business per se, be Retail Social certainly has parallels.
On this point be Retail Social founder, Simon Iddon says
“As often happens, some exciting new tech and some creative conceptualised ideas are introduced yet, as with the metaverse in its infancy, it’s still lacking a fair amount of concrete thinking on what it means and does and, most importantly, how it demonstrably benefits people. Tech is great when it serves a purpose to improve, yet in the past there is much evidence of 3 steps forward and 1 back, however there is certainly huge opportunity with the metaverse. We approached be Retail Social from the angle of understanding both the customer and the sector’s problems and addressing key missed opportunities around an enhanced customer experience. We focused on influencing buying decision journeys and on improving both online and the physical ‘real’ world with deeper omnichannel integration to further enhance and engage.”
beThere, one of our platform accelerator modules, is a prime example of enhanced integration between the physical and online worlds, which most still label as ‘omnichannel’, an old and often misconstrued term in our opinion. We say that’s it’s closer to ‘metachannel’ i.e., existing within and seamlessly integrating between physical, 3D, virtual and social.
While the fashion sector has dabbled with the metaverse there are as many doubting voices as supportive ones. Robert Gentz, co-founder and co-CEO of Zalando, the 8 billion euro online German clothing retailer, makes the point in The State of Fashion Technology report that “AR and VR might have a part to play in answering the ‘size and fit’ question but regarding virtual items in a purely virtual world” to his mind the jury is still very much out. Yet things evolve (as Darwin’s Galápagos finches taught us), ‘digital’ is here to stay and will continually evolve, hopefully for the better, and with this, an improved balance of the virtual and the real-world bringing truer omnichannel, or as it might even be termed ‘metachannel’.
A pillar of the metaverse, as presented by the likes of Meta (formerly Facebook), is Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), and although AR is supported on mobile (made more popular with Pokémon), there are concerns about the long-term use of VR equipment. These range from simple physical discomfort and motion sickness to potential long-term psychological side effects. In fact, 78% of people who have ventured into a virtual world say they miss physical interaction – a barrier to entry. A more natural solution is be Retail Social’s approach, that balances innovative omnichannel and social personalized virtualization tech with focus on improving the customer journey and influencing real world buying decisions, As Simon Iddon says,
“The metaverse certainly has many parallels to our basket of services. We have human realistic virtual avatars, dynamically moving in virtual fitting rooms. You can ‘be you’ and personalize how you want to look while using intuitively interactive virtual try-on of clothing in many styles, fabrics and colours. A further leap forward is within our omnichannel solution, which with the social extension of your digital space, allows you to invite others ‘in’ to your virtual fitting room for feedback and banter, more akin to the real world, but all online.”
Is virtual try on a ‘concrete opportunity’ for the Metaverse?
So, while the metaverse concept is currently a nebulous one and there are concerns about the equipment and the prospective change to human lives from accessing this new world, is there clarity on the benefits of all of this? Simon Iddon’s opinion is:
“Some people will absolutely love to sit with a VR headset on, meet their friends, virtually go out, virtually go on holiday, virtually go for a run, bungee jump or some other experience, all from their sofa, like an episode of Black Mirror. But this is a huge behavioural change, and whatever percentage of people will relish their new virtual freedom and the opportunities it brings, everything is a balance, and human nature will still need and want real world and tangible physical interactions.”
The current evolution of ‘online’, while clearly giving more freedom and choice to buy from anywhere with ease, has taken away some aspects of human nature. The fitting room experience, seeing what you look like in the clothes as you move and turn, with an arm full of hangers of clothes in different sizes and colours, the social aspect of shopping together with friends and their sought-after feedback and approvals – if the colour suits you or if your bum looks big in that? These are some of the areas we have been addressing as they represent clear missed opportunities, materially for customers, and for retailers, to evolve beyond our present era of online shopping.
To summarize: Tech advances should always improve our situation, but whereas focus has previously been more afforded to the incremental benefits that ‘online’ was bringing for customers and retailers, little thought (either through a lack of vision or a lack of capability) has been given to asking about what was being lost and left behind. Human nature, being ‘you’ in the clothes and being with others for feedback are some of the key areas be Retail Social has addressed. We are trying to rehumanize the evolution of retail through virtual fitting rooms and virtual try-on – delivering these sought-after omissions lost along the way.
There are many crucial problems and missed opportunities that fashion and clothing retailers have today that will not be solved by gambling huge sums on which provider is going to win the metaverse popularity contest (at least in the old days it was a straight coin toss between VHS and Betamax – and we probably got that wrong, too) as there are dozens of metaverse providers. It’s better perhaps that retailers focus on the key requirements, like how to get more people, spending more money, and converting more often. At the same time, it’s important that they (and their boards) are not being risk adverse to change (after all, it’s riskier to not evolve as a business); that they are willing to look at new concepts and technologies where they could tangibly benefit, not put a bit of tech in just for the sake of it, but importantly, be there in the running.
References
https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-the-metaverse/
https://www.retaildive.com/news/metaverse-awareness-mainstream-consumer-knowledge-gap/623425/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61979150
By John Gould (14.Sep.1804 – 3.Feb.1881) – From ‘Voyage of the Beagle’; as found on http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/published/1845_Beagle_F14/1845_Beagle_F14_fig07.jpg