Why VR is the future of E-commerce

Why VR is the future of E-commerce

How do you buy online right now?

Find your product, click add to cart, put your credit card details in with your shipping address and click complete purchase - pretty boring

Choose The Best Colour For Your Add To Cart Button | Convertize

What makes it exciting?

A couple of things

  • When there is a sale on - take 10% off, free shipping, spend and save
  • When there is a limited run - urgency
  • When its a new release - urgency

You look for your items on your flat screen, monitor or phone and you get a little excited and you buy it.

Yes Tim, we know what ecommerce is get to the point here

The whole point of having an e-commerce store is to allow people to purchase your goods without having to put a foot in your brick and mortar store.

You build a website to replicate the in-store experience. But there is a couple of elements that are still missing.

  • You don't get the human interaction of a sales assistant directing you towards the right product for you.
  • You don't see other people lining up to get in the store, or running in to get the new item that has just been released.
  • You don't get to feel the item in your hand, so its hard to size it up. Images and videos are fine, but not the same

Now some people love that they can buy all of their shopping in their undies and they dont have to deal with an annoying staff member who thinks she is

too cool to be working on the weekend, but hear me out.

Introducing competitive ecommerce.

What if there was a new type of buying style online.

Picture this, you are a vegan that loves rock-climbing and every night you dream about buying a tiny home. You decided to

go to www.patagonia.com.au and buy yourself a new jacket, you login, add to cart and your item is shipping, pretty standard right.

What if...............

Patagonia had built a competitive ecommerce site that goes like this.

New items come on sale but in order to buy them there is a catch. You have to have a VR headset and in order to buy the items you need to climb

to the top of a mountain. (Video below for refence of the climb 2, its a separate game, but would be awesome for Patagonia to use)

So they release the items at the top of the mountain and for the first hour they are on sale for 20% off. Why is this interesting? Well everyone else in the world can climb the

mountain too. So you have to climb it the fastest to get to the top to then add to your cart or pocket to buy the item. When you do reach the top, how much more likely to buy that item?

The idea is simply gamifying e-commerce, its not for everyone, but for those that want a sale item, it brings in a different angle that just paying the most for an item or being the fastest at adding it to the cart.

Here is a couple of other ideas.

Boxing gloves company releases new gloves - everyone can fight each other and the winner wins a new pair of gloves.

New headphone company wants to release new product, highest score in beat Saber wins.

Craft beer company releases new beers, first hour of sale people can punch on instore

These are just a couple of ideas, but the list is endless. I love the idea of it and cannot wait to dive into it.

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