But it could be that boosting the shopping experience on an e-store isn’t enough to entice consumers, who now want many experiences on metaverse platforms – and diverse ones at that.
Meta what? If you’re not familiar with the concept of the metaverse, it’s essentially a virtual, fictional world – in other words, a digital world parallel to ours.
It’s an incomprehensible notion for some, but one that’s very real for the youngest generations used to gaming and social networks – all effectively kinds of metaverse – although still far from the concept recently evoked by Mark Zuckerberg, who, by changing the name of Facebook to Meta, imagines a future where the virtual and the real would form one and the same world.
Towards a boom in virtual stores?
But that’s still some way off. In the meantime, the public is gradually embracing these new worlds, mainly through gaming, and adopting new practices that seem to appeal.
Through the survey “The Metaverse Mindset,” the virtual shopping platform Obsess* surveyed Americans of all generations about virtual shopping experiences in the metaverse, reflecting a definite interest in these new practices.
Seven out of ten consumers who have visited a virtual store have made a purchase there, and a third say they are already interested in buying real or virtual products – the boundary is blurring – in metaverse environments created by brands.
This figure rises to 40% for the youngest generations, namely Gen Z and Millennials.
Gaming, which is now worth US$300 billion – more than the music and movie industries combined – according to consulting firm Accenture, is attracting an ever-growing audience, including women, and has been gaining even more traction with Gen Z since the pandemic began.
The study also shows that nearly three-quarters of Gen Zers have already purchased a digital item in a video game, and that 60% now believe that brands should sell their products in these parallel universes.
Among them, more than half want a shopping experience where anyone can shop anywhere they go online, and 45% say that metaverse environments should be considered as digital shopping malls.
“These shoppers have grown up with online video games, esports and social media, and many of them see the emerging metaverse as a modern-day mall – a connected virtual world where they can hang out, shop and socialize.
For retail brands, these survey findings highlight the importance of creating sound metaverse commerce strategies today that will resonate with consumers over the coming years,” explains Obsess CEO, Neha Singh.
Concept or reality?
All that remains now is to define what the metaverse really is. In his Meta presentation video, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his own version of these new worlds, in which we would be immersed via a headset or virtual reality glasses, navigating between a summit conference, a concert, and a shopping session with the help of our digital twin. But social networks are also considered by specialists as metaverse experiences, as is gaming…
So, what do consumers think? It seems that they are confused by the mass of definitions and terms that keep emerging with this upcoming concept.
The study reveals that 40% of respondents, across all generations, consider that the metaverse is only at a conceptual stage, but that it could materialize in the form of online technological platforms on which users could move around using an avatar.
A minority (27%) believe that the metaverse refers to a technology owned by Meta, the parent company of Facebook.