Life After Lockdown: Why virtual shopping experiences could be the future

As the country emerges from lockdown, it’s a very different landscape for a lot of businesses.

Bdaily spoke to business owners across the country about how they’re changing their ways of working, and what innovations they’re adopting permanently after lockdown.

Stellar Global, which specialises in retail experiences such as in-store demonstrations, is making the move to virtual shopping experiences.

Anna Brettle, founder of Stellar, explained: “Virtual shopping experiences offer such a huge potential and retail businesses must look forward to adopting these technologies to improve better shopping experiences for consumers for both online and in-store.

“The demand for virtual experiences will be substantial in the future as implementation of these technologies enables businesses to grow and shoppers will be expecting to be able to shop from home with a virtual experience similar to what they have in a store.

“With the ongoing situation of COVID-19, retailers have had to re-evaluate their strategies to ensure they create compelling shopping experiences further than the shop floor to develop rich communications with consumers and capture a new online audience that they might not have done previously.

“We’ve recently started to host virtual product demonstrations for our client Sage Appliances and it’s been a great success.

“From the day that we first launched, we received over 800 registrations and each virtual demonstration so far has had high engagement rates with users viewing 42 mins out of 46 mins – showing a craving for the content and offering an immersive, engaging experience to consumers.

“As fancy as technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality sound, they are only as good as the value they bring to your customer experience.

“Observe how your customers are currently interacting with your brand, then determine how virtual shopping experiences can make those interactions better.

“Digital disruption has brought huge changes to retail over the past few years and brands are continuing to invest in their physical retail as consumers prefer to try products in store with a hands-on approach.

“Retailers have incorporated numerous experiences such as product demonstrations, product sampling and pop ups which gives the consumer the ability to see, touch and feel products in real life.

“But it’s key for retailers to consider an omnichannel approach with their strategies which has been highlighted throughout the lockdown and to address the issue of enhancing brand and product knowledge for online audiences.

“I’ve seen an increase of retailers and brands creating a community for potential consumers through the use of social media such as hosting live video streams.

“The brands hosting experiences such as live video streams are helping to build communities and in turn will bring people together as they connect through their discoveries of a brand and their products.”

“We’re seeing a rise in the use of virtual reality and augmented reality which is providing an interactive and personalised customer experience.

“VR and AR open up so many opportunities for retailers to help stimulate an immersive environment and takes customer engagement to a whole new level by providing customers with virtual tours of a store or product from the comfort of their homes.

“Not only will these technology options strengthen customer relations, virtual reality experiences in retail will help companies retain their customers and achieve profits even in a highly competitive market as it will help increase confidence in a purchasing decision.

“The Stellar team and I place a big focus on data whenever we’re working on a retail experience whether it’s for online or in-store.

“The power of tech and data is huge for allowing us to understand important information about consumer purchasing behaviours and in return we can personalise the shopping experience, address a consumer’s needs based on where they are in the customer journey, improve efficiencies and reduce costs of supply chains and more.

“We will now see a variety of innovations that were already being developed and perfected become priorities for retailers to adapt more quickly to the changes that have been forced upon us.

“Just as we are evolving our customer experiences to more online experiences such as virtual personal shopping experiences, live streaming and online tutorials in physical stores, we will see new tech being brought into the physical retail environment.

“A focus on mobile payment solutions and digital wallets are just some of the new technology practises we will begin to use in in-store retail experiences.

“Amazon Go is a great example of how retailers can reinvent how physical stores operate and create a unique shopping experience for consumers by embracing technology.

“Unlike bricks-and-mortar stores, Amazon Go don’t include checkout lines, this helps retain this aspect of an online shopping experience.

“However, consumers can shop in a physical space, choose their products, collect them, and leave, all without having to queue in a line to pay.

“With many stores already moving towards an experience concept prior to Covid-19, more space given over to customer experience is a transition that will be embraced now with a superb online sales solution to back up the real experience.”