Category: Industry Insights

Introducing AVA, A Virtual Store Editor and Builder

After 2+ years of development, Obsess has launched a self-service tool to empower our brand partners to easily create and manage Obsess-powered virtual stores, which include elements of virtual and augmented reality, gamification and interactive shopping. The forward-thinking, innovative addition to Obsess’ virtual store technology platform enables brands to create smarter, more dynamic stores that match consumers’ ever-evolving needs and align to brands’ marketing and merchandising calendars. 

Virtual shopping experiences drive greater consumer engagement and E-commerce results, and with AVA by Obsess, brands can expedite content management and merchandising of fully branded, immersive, 3D virtual stores—simplifying how to create a virtual store. The powerful, first-to-market virtual store editor enables brands and retailers to make their virtual storefronts dynamic and easily implement optimizations to merchandising and content. 

How to Create a Virtual Store with AVA

The AVA platform enables brands to customize an entire 3D virtual store without additional assets or 3D design experience—the virtual store editor was developed to provide 3D editing and merchandising technology to brands in a “no-code” format.
To get started, AVA users simply have to upload a standard 3D media file into the content management system (CMS). Obsess’ patented rendering technology then converts it into a proprietary, web-compatible format for large-scale 3D environments. Brands can also easily integrate SKU-level data and product imagery from their E-commerce stores and dynamically place products throughout the virtual retail store.

Managing Dynamic Virtual Storefronts

In the words of Obsess Founder and CEO, Neha Singh: “In the same way that platforms like Shopify and Squarespace revolutionized digital presence enablement for brands, AVA by Obsess democratizes building for the next generation of the web—which is 3D, interactive, and experiential.”

Shopify enabled brands to seamlessly create storefronts for the traditional web grid interface; likewise, Obsess enables brands to seamlessly create shoppable virtual storefronts in 3D. 
Teams of all experiences can easily customize merchandising and styling in the virtual store editor, and are able to quickly add content hotspots to showcase immersive offerings such as in-scene videos, games, educational content, and avatars. Regardless of expertise, anyone on your team can make updates to your virtual store’s display through the CMS.

Expediting Optimizations with the Virtual Store Editor

“Brands need to keep their virtual experiences fresh, just like their websites,” says Singh. Virtual stores are an always-on, year-round sales channel that needs to be optimized regularly, and adapt to ongoing learnings about shoppers. As an immersive extension of the brand’s own website, Obsess-powered virtual store experiences offer more control compared to external platforms. 

As an owned channel, virtual stores grant brands access to first-party customer behavioral data and 3D spatial insights, which can be used to optimize the experience for later iterations. 

First-party data allows brands to increase the efficacy of their promotional content, and strategically highlight their products to increase engagement and conversion. From product placement to embedded media content, the AVA virtual store editor allows brands to make optimizations quickly and frequently.

AVA access is included as part of every managed service contract with Obsess. Every Obsess partner is able to use the tool as part of their annual subscription—they can choose to use the virtual store editor independently or work with their dedicated team to manage their virtual store. Get connected at contact@obsessvr.com to talk to the Obsess team about building a virtual store. 

Reducing environmental impact is one of the key reasons that brands choose to build virtual stores. Likewise, sustainability is of the utmost importance to Obsess—in terms of how we function day-to-day as a company, and how we choose our partners and providers for our virtual stores.

To raise awareness around sustainable retail practices, and provide more robust transparency around virtual store carbon emissions, Obsess created a Carbon Emissions Calculator for Retail Stores. This free, public tool analyzes the energy output of brick-and-mortar retail stores, in comparison to virtual retail stores.

Learn how the Obsess platform supports a sustainable future:

1) Minimizing Waste and Carbon Emissions

The Obsess virtual store platform enables brands to create immersive selling environments that can be optimized, decorated, and staffed using fewer resources than traditional physical retail.

• Every Obsess virtual store can be accessed via web browser. This means that consumers do not need to travel to access physical shopping locations, reducing their carbon footprint from transportation.
• Store owners and managers do not need to transport physical goods into their retail locations when they supplement a virtual store for a physical one. Retailers use our proprietary virtual merchandising tool to showcase digital product imagery in virtual stores on an ongoing, dynamic basis.
• Key virtual store platform features like quizzes and virtual try-ons allow consumers to better match products to their individual needs and styling. Better product matching leads to fewer returns—thus reducing any back-and-forth of items in transit, and ultimately mitigating excess carbon emissions.
• Obsess retail partners are able to test demand for product inventory through virtual selling, leading to lower waste and better stock estimates at their physical store locations.

2) Increasing Transparency

Our technology empowers brands to increase visibility and engagement for their already-impactful content. The Obsess platform is 100% customizable, so brands can showcase sustainability messaging and visuals in a hyper-engaging, memorable context.

The Carbon Emissions Calculator for Retail Stores compares the energy output of brick-and-mortar retail stores, in comparison to virtual retail stores. If a retail or brand team is evaluating construction for a new physical store location, they use this tool to assess its potential carbon impact—and compare it to the impact of a virtual store alternative.

3) Efficient Energy Usage

As a fully managed SaaS (Software as a Service) platform, Obsess relies on a technology infrastructure that can support top-tier web performance, without compromising environmental impact.

• Web hosting for Obsess virtual stores:
  • Our primary hosting provider is 3.6X more energy efficient than other hosting providers in the US, and 5X more energy efficient than other hosting providers in Europe. It is on track to be powered by 100% renewable energy by 2025. 
  • Our provider is heavily invested in sustainable innovation—from the chip designs of their servers, to the cooling systems for their data centers. Their latest chips use up to 60% less energy, and their latest cooling technology uses 20% less energy.
• Content Delivery Network (CDN) for Obsess virtual stores:
  • Our primary global Content Delivery Network (CDN) provider has committed to powering its network of servers with 100% renewable energy and offsetting or removing all historical emissions associated with powering its network by 2025.

4) Daily Sustainable Practices

The full Obsess team is devoted to making positive choices that support a sustainable mission, particularly in our offices.

• 88% of all Obsess employees commute into an office via either public transit or walking. The majority of remaining employees work from home and do not require transportation at all.
• Our New York-based headquarters has eliminated the use of single-use plastics.
• The office provider for our New York-based headquarters will be carbon neutral in 2023. It is 2.5X more energy efficient than a typical office.

Obsess is committed to a sustainable future. To learn more about how virtual stores and the metaverse can help the retail industry with sustainability, check out this post.

Whether brands are creating virtualized versions of their IRL storefronts or building completely new virtual flagships on their e-commerce sites, virtual stores have been shown to generate greater engagement and foster deeper connections with consumers. By default, virtual stores provide a more immersive and contextual online shopping experience. And when virtual stores include one or more custom features, brands are able to create even stickier consumer experiences.

Explore the top 5 Obsess platform features that generate increased engagement.

1. Gamification

Adding features such as memory games, scavenger hunts, and quizzes promotes increased interaction and incentivizes product discovery.

2. Branded Avatars

Walking, talking, fully customizable avatars enable consumers to personalize their characters and feel even more connected to a brand.

3. Shop with Friends

Live group shopping brings community engagement and social proof into the virtual space.

4. Welcome Tutorial

Guided navigation tutorials encourage consumers to explore a wider variety of virtual rooms.

5. Store Maps

Maps facilitate more intuitive navigation and increase consumers’ likelihood to travel through a full virtual store.

To learn more about the Obsess virtual store platform features, and how they can be included in your e-commerce selling strategy—contact our virtual store specialists at contact@obsessvr.com and book a demo today.

The beauty industry is consistently leaning into innovation by adopting new technologies. From VR/AR technology, such as virtual try-ons, to gamified experiences—modern beauty selling is customer-centric and focused on engagement. 

Obsess is home to the largest portfolio of virtual stores amongst beauty brands. These forward-thinking brands are changing virtual reality retail shopping in the beauty industry with interactive features in their virtual stores. Here are the top 3 features proven to drive engagement in beauty virtual stores.

1. Branded Gamification

Custom gamification flows such as seek-and-find games are primed for driving exploration and product discovery. On average, pages per session increase by 513% for our Beauty partners when they include a scavenger hunt game in their virtual stores.

Several beauty brands also opt to include discounts or gifts with purchase upon game completion—incentivizing shoppers to complete their transactions. For one brand, winning the scavenger hunt led to an exclusive gift, which had a 100% claim rate within the first week of launch.

2. Custom Quizzes

Custom quizzes allow brands to collect first-party data, which prompt shoppers to fill in their skin types, color preferences, and more. Shoppers are presented with personalized product recommendations in their results, similarly to how a sales associate would recommend products in a physical retail store. Quizzes can also encourage exploration by providing recommendations of rooms to visit in the virtual experience. 

Quizzes encourage upsells by enabling shoppers to effortlessly add all recommended products to their bag. One brand utilized the quiz feature to present its shoppers with a custom skincare routine, based on each shopper’s individual skin concerns and goals.

3. Branded Avatars

Branded Avatar technology brings the best of gaming and the metaverse directly to your E-commerce website.

3D Branded Avatars enable brands and retailers to create their own metaverse directly on their websites and provide shoppers with an immersive, social, and branded virtual environment. One brand partner created glamorous avatars based on their campaign ambassadors—their shoppers could customize their personal avatars with full makeup looks and runway-ready outfits. 

Consumers that customize these walking, talking, bespoke brand characters spend more time in stores and have a higher propensity to proceed to checkout. This innovative new functionality further personalizes the virtual store experience and deepens customer relationships with the brand.

Up-level your virtual store engagement with interactive features that have proven their impact in beauty, such as gamification, quizzes, and Branded Avatars. Email us at contact@obsessvr.com to meet with the Obsess team and learn more about increasing consumer engagement through virtual stores.

Brick and mortar retail displays are updated regularly to mirror new collection drops, holidays and seasonal changes, and special promotions in an effort to increase sales and keep in-store experiences relevant. Just like in retail, it’s important to frequently refresh your virtual stores so that your shoppers have access to your most up-to-date content. Virtual stores serve as both an incremental brand engagement touchpoint, and an additional distribution point for your promotional campaigns. Updating your virtual displays permits ongoing optimizations based on consumer data from previous store iterations, and keeps your customers coming back time and time again. 

Refreshing your virtual store allows for long-term evolution, along with your growing brand and business needs. Plus, compared to traditional retail—virtual store refreshes are fast (no heavy-lifting or employee training required), cost-efficient (store refreshes come standard when working with Obsess), and sustainable (no more continuously buying and throwing out fixtures).

Roll out new products and collections.

It’s important to continuously adjust and improve product placements to increase sales and optimize customer experience. Switch out your inventory and exhibit your latest collections by creating new eye-catching virtual displays. Showcase your most recent collections by expanding your virtual store, creating new rooms, swapping out shelves, or moving new products to the front. 

For example, American Girl updates their virtual museum experience each time they launch a new doll. With every product launch comes a new exhibit spotlighting the doll’s story in an environment that perfectly fits her personality.

The American Girl Museum’s most recent addition is a room dedicated to Claudie Wells, a doll from the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, who dreams of being an artist. You can meet Claudie in the interactive bakery where her dad works and learn more about her background.

Decorate to reflect different holidays and seasons.

Deck out your store for the holidays and other seasonal campaign events. Leverage visual merchandising to increase sales by matching the store’s ambience to different collections and seasons. 

Without the added manual labor of redecorating and deconstructing, it’s easier to take on a virtual design refresh than a physical one. Another bonus? It’s cheaper and more sustainable than having to buy decorations every few months, throw them out, and then buy them again for the next year. 

For the 2022 holiday season, Crocs chose to do a total revamp of their virtual store with added glitz and glam to showcase their texture-inspired holiday collection. Meanwhile, The Honest Company added subtle design tweaks to their virtual store, including snow-frosted trees and bow-wrapped wreaths for a festive touch. 

Expand your virtual real estate over time.

Don’t just revamp your virtual store, grow it.

Create value for your customers by aligning your IRL and e-commerce activations with their virtual counterparts. Virtual stores can be tweaked throughout the year to highlight your marketing calendar events and dynamically reflect your business priorities. 

To align with the growth of their annual live fan event, Bravocon, Bravo significantly expanded the size of their virtual Bravo Bazaar over the course of one year. The brand added several rooms throughout the year to continue engaging Bravoholics with the latest “Real Housewives’” swag, “Top Chef” recipes, and “Below Deck” destinations. Bravo continues to regularly update the design of each of its rooms seasonally.

Rethink your virtual store refresh strategy.

An Obsess subscription allows you to create different iterations of your virtual store throughout the year.

Whether you want to change the décor, include a new game, add in Branded Avatars, or build a new room—there are several different ways to make your virtual store more dynamic. And the best part? The initial lift of creating a virtual store wraps just as soon as the store launches, so it takes minimal effort to refresh your virtual vision as the year progresses.

Email us at contact@obsessVR.com to learn more about our subscription plans and how you can continuously engage your customers through your virtual store.   

Charitable organizations launch some of their biggest donation campaigns during the holidays, but the need for mission-driven marketing persists all year round.

With 18% of annual donations happening in December—the holidays, in particular, present brands with the chance to embrace impactful innovation, which drives fundraising and encourages giving (Blackbaud Institute, 2022). The fundraising formula is ripe for modernization as new digital initiatives are popularized for differentiating campaigns during the holidays and beyond. 

For the 2022 holiday season, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital launched a cozy, cheerful, donation-driven virtual experience through the Obsess virtual store platform. The St. Jude Winter Village proved to be an ideal illustration of how Obsess can power a virtual hub for mission-centric messaging and consumer-led donations.

Explore the intricacies of St. Jude’s virtual winter wonderland, and see how the brand powered donation efforts by creating an accessible donor journey, discovery-driven navigation, and an immersive gift shopping experience.

Donation Through Exploration

The St. Jude Winter Village allows visitors to virtually explore a cozy and festive 3D environment including the Ice Shop, the Ferris Wheel of Hope, and the Donation Station. Visitors can use the map to easily travel from one area of the experience to another. Similarly, users can follow the branded signs within the store for a guided, discovery-driven trek through the snow.

The Winter Village’s map and signage both encourage exploration—ultimately leading to multiple calls to donate to St. Jude. Each call to donate is accompanied by immersive 3D visuals and powerful storytelling to illustrate the brand’s mission. 

The experience also makes it easy to donate thanks to the persistent donation button in the bottom navigation menu. No matter where a user travels within the virtual experience, they can always access the donation portal by clicking on the hand and heart icon.

Bringing Patient Stories to Life

Placed throughout the virtual experience are several pieces of artwork from real St. Jude patients. Each piece of artwork is clickable and unveils the artist’s unique story.

For example: when clicking on a giant, 3D replica of patient Coraliz’s art, you unlock the story of her journey with osteosarcoma. The story reveals how St. Jude helped Coraliz overcome the disease, and eventually regain strength and mobility in her leg. A separate artwork spotlights the story of a patient with a rare form of eye cancer, who practiced art to occupy himself while recovering from a life-saving surgery provided by St. Jude.

After reading these inspiring stories and viewing each patient’s artwork in virtual reality, users are prompted to donate art supplies or other gifts to children in the hospital. Adding context and content to the 3D visuals further immerses users in the stories of St. Jude patients, and makes brand interactions more purpose-driven and meaningful.

A Multilingual Experience

The St. Jude Winter Village was created through a lens of personalization for a diverse set of audiences.

The brand wanted to make the store accessible for multiple markets, beginning with both English and Spanish-speaking locales. The store’s translation feature can be found in the upper right-hand corner of the virtual experience.

At any point, the Winter Village can be translated from English to Spanish, or vice-versa. All donation buttons and virtual signage in the 3D environment are readily available in both languages, enabling a larger population to understand and support the St. Jude mission.

Accessibility for All

St. Jude ensured that their virtual store was easy to navigate for users of all abilities.

For instance: all donation buttons within the store are accompanied by descriptive text, which allows for users with screen readers to easily access the donation portal. Likewise, the full Winter Village experience can be accessed either via mouse click or keyboard on desktop. 

By increasing accessibility and navigation options, St. Jude embraced inclusivity, and in turn—increased overall donations from their virtual store.

Gamification and Livestreaming

Immersive giving takes on a whole new meaning in the Winter Village, with the addition of AI-powered gaming and livestream shopping.

On Giving Tuesday 2022, five different St. Jude celebrity ambassadors hosted a live stream via video chat directly from the virtual experience. The livestream functioned to raise additional awareness and support for the hospital.

The general public was able to join these live sessions through a unique URL, which transported them directly into the virtual showcase. Users were able to listen to ambassadors in real-time, while simultaneously exploring the Winter Village. Live chat for Q&A with each celebrity was open throughout the duration of the livestream, enabling real-time interactions for up-leveled brand engagements.

The Winter Village also employs always-on gamification features for increased interactivity. The experience features a massive Connect 4 board that users can play to unlock shipping discounts.

Integrating E-commerce

In addition to serving as a fundraising platform for direct donations, the virtual experience also functions as an extension of St. Jude’s e-commerce experience—doubling down on its donation power. Users can purchase merchandise and memorabilia that ultimately benefit the children of the hospital, helping fund future treatments and research. 

Just like the St. Jude e-commerce site, the gift shop within the Winter Village displays product details, sizing, and pricing for all of the brand’s not-for-profit merchandise.

Amplifying Brand Mission through Virtual

By creating an immersive, discovery-driven, fantastical, and highly accessible experience—St. Jude was able to create an interactive destination for donations and brand engagements.

St. Jude’s virtual store included a variety of features that any mission-based brand can add to their virtual campaign playbook. For instance, organizations taking a stance against climate change can leverage virtual storytelling and e-commerce integrations to build awareness for their cause and increase education on their sustainability efforts. The same is true for any other brand that wants to amplify its mission using the Obsess virtual store platform.

To learn more about how Obsess virtual stores can inspire more donations and bolster your brand’s mission, contact our team at contact@obsessVR.com. 

Citations

Longfield, C. (2018, February). Charitable Giving Report: How Fundraising Performed in 2017. Blackbaud Institute. www.institute.blackbaud.com

Virtual stores serve as a new commerce channel for your brand. And as with any new selling channel, more promotion leads to more awareness—which is why it’s so important to promote your virtual store as part of your regular marketing mix. Based on data from 150+ virtual stores, we’ve compiled a list of the top marketing channels to promote your virtual store in order to increase traffic and drive up ROI. 

Generally, visual channels outperform text-based channels when it comes to virtual store promotion. Visual channels provide an opportunity to insert a video or an image of a store and set user expectations from the onset. Between social media, press, email marketing, offline marketing, and more—there are a number of visual marketing channels that Obsess customers have used to market their virtual stores.

1. Social Media

Social media is a great platform to introduce new users to your virtual store. There is a lot of potential to reach new and existing shoppers, as content is constantly created and shared. With so many different platforms, brands have plenty of creative freedom to decide how to promote their stores—from organic Posts and Stories, to Paid Ads and Influencers.

Obsess partner Stephanie Gottlieb used Instagram Reels to promote her Gem Palace virtual store, driving awareness at mass scale. She continuously engaged her impressive IG following via Stories and Reels—providing intel into new games, special promotional codes, and guaranteed early sale access.

In her Reels, she used the Instagram Green Screen feature—which allowed her to input photos and videos of her brand’s virtual store into her social background. While Stephanie included a series of images that emulated the look and feel of her virtual store, other brands have opted to provide their viewers with a tour of the full virtual experience using the Green Screen feature. 

Disney Music Group was another brand that utilized the Green Screen feature, with posts featuring content creators that walked viewers through a video demo of their virtual experience. The brand housed all of their virtual experience posts on their Disney Music Emporium social account, which linked out to their experience directly from their account bio.

Social content creators allow for credible commentary and opinions on store usability, feature functionalities, and detailed in-store highlights that others can refer to before entering the store.

2. E-Commerce Site

Promote your virtual store on a platform your customers already visit with the intent to buy or browse: your existing e-commerce site.

From a dedicated landing page to promotional banners that span the length of your site, there are many different ways to utilize your e-commerce site to promote your virtual store. 

Using an auto-play video or a GIF on your website homepage will catch your audiences’ eyes and entice them to enter your virtual store. These visuals also help to shape your shoppers’ expectations of a virtual store and give them a better sense of how and why to navigate the space. 

You can also promote your virtual store in your site’s navigation bar for easy consumer access. On the American Girl website, the brand lists their virtual store alongside their physical store locations—so shoppers can easily find virtual experiences when searching for boutiques. Even when consumers are not physically close to a retail store, the AG virtual store is always readily available.

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing tends to perform well for virtual stores because the target audience is already familiar with your brand and they are more likely to be loyal shoppers—making it easier to convince them to engage with new content on a new channel.

Many Obsess customers send dedicated email blasts about their virtual stores—typically around store and new feature launches. Some brands also include always-on promotional callouts for their virtual stores in their regularly scheduled emails. 

Maybelline sent their mailing list an email dedicated to the virtual experience, complete with GIFs that showed the interior of the store, and links to specific rooms within the store. In the banner section, they strategically placed a GIF of the store’s entrance and highlighted the game directly below.

Emails are a great way to engage your most dedicated audience, showcase your virtual store through imagery and video, and guide potential customers to the experience. Email marketing can also increase the longevity of your virtual store by reinforcing messaging to revisit different sections of the store.

4. In-Store Promotions

One of the best assets to promote your virtual presence? Your IRL retail locations.

As part of their virtual store marketing strategy, Ralph Lauren used physical stores to help drive digital traffic. With brick-and-mortar stores in prime shopping locations such as SoHo in New York City, Ralph Lauren was able to use their existing IRL footprint to capture online shoppers. 

Ralph Lauren included a QR code on their retail displays, which led to the virtual twin versions of their retail stores. The QR codes allowed Ralph Lauren to retarget customers through virtual after they left the IRL experiences—prolonging customer communications and relationship management.

5. Offline Marketing

Offline marketing can drive buzz at scale for virtual stores.

Prada Beauty expanded beyond digital with the addition of billboards to their virtual store marketing stack. The billboards were a way for the brand to generate mass awareness and interest around the virtual store and products.

From IRL to URL, potential customers could find billboards and posters plastered around the world—each containing a QR code that led shoppers to the Prada Beauty virtual experience.

Ralph Lauren also opted to include some offline channels in their virtual store marketing mix, such as print ads, to raise awareness around their various virtual stores. The ad introduced readers to the virtual experience through vivid imagery of the interiors of each store.

6. Press

Many brands use press as a way to market their virtual stores. Press is used to generate interest surrounding an initial store launch, or launches of new products and features. Press articles efficiently summarize the benefits and core features of a virtual store—plus, they serve as a backlink to improve SEO. Quality backlinks can increase virtual store ranks on search engines by building credibility.

For example, when WWD covered Crocs’ holiday store launch, Crocs effectively introduced their virtual store to WWD’s reader base while increasing their own online credibility and authority with a reputable backlink. 

The more regularly you promote your virtual store, the more familiar your potential customers will be with the concept. There are many ways to take advantage of marketing to raise awareness around your virtual store, set user expectations, and increase traffic. It’s critical to test a variety of channels, and then optimize toward the channels that your audience responds to best. 

Our advice to you: test and learn, show lots of visuals, and take advantage of storytelling to set the tone of your virtual store.

If you’re interested in learning more about raising awareness and improving the traffic of your virtual store, contact the Obsess customer success team at contact@obsessVR.com.

Follow along the Obsess blog as we build the future of experiential e-commerce and metaverse shopping. Read more on industry insights and trends.

The National Retail Federation reports November and December to be the most lucrative time of year for retailers, averaging approximately 19% of their annual retail sales. Brands and retailers have to stay competitive and at the forefront of the consumer’s mind at all times – especially online, where the majority of consumers plan to make their purchases. But how can you increase the ROI of your holiday e-commerce marketing campaigns?

1. Start early.

With Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas, the last two months are some of the busiest for the retail industry. For the high spending seasons like the end-of-year holidays, brands and retailers start their prep early; many start planning their holiday marketing campaigns in August or September so that they can kick off the campaigns in early October, or even late September. Over the past decade, over 50% of consumers start shopping around for presents in early November, with approximately 40% of consumers starting in late October – it’s in your best interest to kick off your annual holiday campaigns sooner rather than later to capture the early birds’ attention while simultaneously giving your campaigns time to optimize. 

2. Stand out.

With the plethora of marketing campaigns around this time of year, it pays to stand out. 

Branding is an important aspect of holiday e-commerce marketing because of the consumer’s openness to discovering new brands/products; it’s important to increase awareness and buzz for when consumers are finally ready to buy something. One way to do this is to create a memorable experience for your customers. Physically, this typically translates into over-the-top holiday decorations for your retail stores, themed pop-ups, or even having special guests make an appearance. Digitally, this is typically more difficult but virtual stores provide brands with an easy opportunity. 

Virtual stores can be a valuable addition to your digital holiday marketing campaigns because they enable brands and retailers to create unique, custom, and memorable experiences for your customers. Combining fantastical elements with practical functionality, you are able to either digitally recreate a physical experience or get creative with something completely out of the box – you’re not bound by physical constraints, so the options are endless. The Obsess team will work with your creative team to create the store of your dreams and help your campaign stand out from others using innovative retail technology.

3. Thoroughly engage.

Brands and retailers will also want their campaigns to be engaging, to keep them relevant and at the top of the consumer’s mind throughout the season. Using AR and VR technology in the retail industry helps increase engagement rates across the board. Proprietary data from 4+ years of creating virtual stores and experiences has shown that the Obsess virtual store platform increases engagement both with individual products and the brand. 

Virtual stores are interactive, immersive, discovery-driven, and filled with fun content for users to engage with. Between games, quizzes, gift guides, videos, and other interactive elements, there are a lot of ways to get your audience to engage with your brand. The rich array of relevant content for individuals to interact with also increases the average time spent within the store and prompts users to explore the experience in its entirety, driving them to discover more products.

For example, many Obsess partners use gamification as a means to provide their customers with special promo codes – think scavenger hunt that unlocks a code upon completion. Within the virtual experience, brands and retailers can prompt users to complete a task to obtain a special discount or gift. When introducing the task, you have the opportunity to prompt action and create urgency by highlighting scarcity (i.e. first x amount of people get a gift with purchase) or a time limit/countdown (i.e. must complete before x date).  

Bring online shopping to life with compelling, creative content in a highly contextual environment to capture the joy of the holidays, even if the user is shopping from their couch. 

4. Be personal.

The traditional e-commerce shopping experience is dry – it’s thumbnail after thumbnail on a plain, white grid, making personalization difficult. As convenient as the typical online experience is, many people still crave the personal touch of shopping in-person. So how do you make the online shopping experience personal?

Virtual stores make online shopping personal by appealing to the user’s human nature through social features that help mimic the in-person experience. With innovative capabilities such as selfie booths with AR filters, one-on-one service consultations, the ability to shop with your friends, live streaming with influencers, and other features, there’s no shortage of ways to make your user’s shopping experience unique to them. Obsess has even created a feature where the user can add their own touch to the room itself! 

5. Keep data.

Keeping data is important to better understand your customer and therefore optimize your e-commerce marketing campaigns. You have to know what your customers are interacting with, where they are interacting, etc. to sell to them.

Virtual stores serve as another (unique) sales channel for you to obtain data to utilize in order to boost sales and can be a valuable addition to your e-commerce marketing strategy. You control the e-commerce transaction in virtual stores and therefore are able to own the data associated with it. Get direct consumer data and see where your customers are clicking – which products they are interacting with, which pieces of content they find most appealing, etc. – to determine how you want to move forward in your retail strategy. 

Increase ROI of your digital holiday marketing campaigns this year and boost your sales with virtual stores that increase awareness and engagement throughout the busy season. Learn how Obsess can help you build your own virtual store by emailing us at contact@obsessVR.com.

As budgeting season approaches, brands and retailers have to figure out the most optimal way to allocate their funds – especially with the current state of the economy. There are a wide variety of marketing solutions at a retailers’ disposal but some are more cost-efficient than others, such as virtual stores when compared to physical stores. 

Virtual stores offer an immersive and discovery-driven experience that can provide high engagement at a lower cost compared to traditional brick-and-mortar stores; they’re able to mimic the experience of in-store shopping without the full costs of operating a storefront. In this blog, we will highlight the top 4 reasons virtual stores offer a more cost-effective retail strategy compared to retail stores.

1.) Lower Opening Costs

Physical retail stores are high cost and high effort. The average cost of opening a retail store in a prime location such as New York City can be over $2M. This is, on average, 6X the amount it would cost to open a virtual store. The $2M price tag includes typical costs such as necessary permits and operating licenses, security deposits, interior designer fees, furniture and store fixtures, and the marketing expenses associated with launch. Virtual stores don’t have the same expenses and can therefore launch at a fraction of the cost. 

The calculated cost of a physical store also only represents the opening cost for a single location. For major retail brands it is necessary to open multiple brick-and-mortar locations around the world, but this is extremely costly. The internationalization of virtual stores allows a single store rendition to be translated and used anywhere around the world, complete with different currencies.

2.) Shorter Go-To-Market Time

Perfectly conceptualizing, curating, and establishing a brick-and-mortar store for launch is a time-consuming and tedious endeavor. Between finding a retail space, developing the aesthetic, constructing a store layout, sourcing materials, hiring staff, and coordinating the store launch, a lot needs to happen before doors open. Virtual stores take a quarter of the time to launch than physical retail stores. The Obsess team works with your creative team to conceptualize and design a custom virtual store. You will have a dedicated team to collaborate with your internal team on 3D designing/photographing, UI designing, implementing content, engineering, and UX testing to bring your vision to life in a timely manner. Rather than taking 12 months for a retail store, virtual stores typically take 2-3 months from start to finish.  

When it comes to launching pop-up stores, a quick turnaround time is extremely important. Obsess, the leading Virtual Store Platform, has worked with a wide variety of brands that have launched virtual pop-up stores in a short time frame. For example, Crocs launched a fully 3D-rendered experience complete with a unique variety of content extras and an avatar of the rap superstar Saweetie to promote their new line of shoe charms. The metaverse store experience “has driven double-digit engagement rates across social media platforms, outperforming digital benchmarks” according to Crocs’ CMO Heidi Cooley. 

3.) Lower Operating Costs

The average price per square foot to rent a retail space in New York City is around $2,775. For a 2,000 square foot store, this ends up being around $5,550,000. When taking into account all operating costs such as salaries for labor, utilities, maintenance, and insurance, operating a physical retail store in NYC can cost around $6M annually. 

Virtual stores provide a highly engaging, discovery-driven shopping experience at a fraction of the cost of a brick-and-mortar store. Retailers are able to satisfy consumer demand for experience without having to pay the additional operating costs associated with maintaining physical retail stores – there is no need to pay utilities, maintenance, or insurance, driving operating costs for a virtual store down to your Obsess subscription. This typically ends up being around $250,000 per year.  

4.) Higher Audience Reach

Virtual stores are not limited by store hours and are accessible worldwide at any time; consumers are able to experience a store without having to go to the physical location. The increased accessibility enables retailers to reach a significantly larger audience than the foot traffic a singular brick-and-mortar store would allow. Brands are able to capitalize on the wide reach of virtual stores, capturing and engaging new consumers across the globe without having to establish a physical presence in international markets. 

For example, Armani Beauty launched a virtual store in tandem with their pop-up concept in the UK’s Piccadilly Circus to promote various products such as makeup and the brand’s Sì fragrance. Without having to fly to London, users can experience a virtual rendition of the pop-up complete with interactive entertainment options, the ability to book appointments with beauty consultants, a billboard display of Cate Blanchett (the fragrance’s spokesperson), AR technology that allows users to try on products, and a 360-degree virtual exterior of Piccadilly Circus.

Not only are virtual stores a more innovative, immersive, and discovery-driven form of e-commerce, they are also a low-cost, high performing platform. This platform performs especially well with the younger generations. These younger audiences are more familiar with the interface, via gaming, and are less likely to shop in physical locations; adhering to their behaviors and preferences is necessary to stay relevant. Virtual stores are the perfect solution to cutting costs in your retail strategy, while staying relevant in an evolving retail market. Get more details of the comparison in the infographic “How Virtual Stores Can Reduce Cost Compared to Retail Stores” here.

Obsess has partnered with the biggest brands in a wide variety of industries to create over 150 virtual stores. To learn more about how Obsess can help you build your virtual flagship store, send us an email at contact@obsessVR.com.