Facebook went Meta and Meta went Giga across the globe. Individuals, brands, corporations, and creators cannot stop being fascinated by the possibilities of the Metaverse. Rightly so, experiences matter and define the journey of loyalty towards a product or a service. Giants like Gucci, Meta, and Nike have already entered the Metaverse fiercely, but a large part of the retail bandwagon is wonderous about the ‘right time’ to enter the Metaverse. Let’s dive deep as the clock is ticking. 

The Metaverse will bring a paradigm shift for retail brands as virtual and physical worlds intersect in the most innovative way we’ve ever imagined. Retail brands need to decipher the shopping benefit in the Metaverse and drive their strategy from there straight up to experiences, sales, and more. But first, let’s dust away from the ambiguity around interpreting the concept of Metaverse as a large part of the world including the retail heads still remain ruffled about it. 

Think of the Metaverse as an intersection of all virtual and emerging technologies that will allow us to create computer-generated environments and individuals who would interact and engage just as in physical worlds. AR/VR, IoT, AI, ML models, blockchain, etc. all combine to create a trove of unique products, services, and experiences that could help them delight their customers and thrive in an ever-evolving competitive landscape. Before you close in on this, know that definitions of the Metaverse are all around you in hushed tones. Let’s wait it out as no one really has the perfect definition of the Metaverse yet. We are getting there for sure. 

Coming back to retail brands, AR and VR will unfurl a trove of opportunities to add depth, character, and storytelling inside a shopping experience, making shoppers more informed and confident of their choices, closing the gap between virtual and real worlds. 

So should retail brands consider entering Metaverse? In a word - take a resounding YES.

Retail brands need to think big. This isn’t the time to stand on the fence. It’s the time to lay your foundation of possibilities that you can dabble with initially and then build on them, as the Metaverse evolves, rather than waiting for the right time. Retail brands need to think laterally to be more creative in offering experiences and solving business problems for a start. Chart out your outreach methods in the most unconventional directions. This is your chance to give your grocery buyer a feeling of buying an airline ticket where you become familiar with the buyer and reward them for their loyalty. 

Retail brands need to redefine their ‘retail model’. Blend experience with storytelling with tech and digital tokens. What does that lead to? Here’s a vivid glimpse:

Play the Display - Act it out a physical display of products imbibed in a story. Stimulate the augmented shopping experience.

Alter Ego, a FOX Series that debuted in 2021, singers can create an avatar and perform as that avatar. That’s voice modulation supported with character, mood, or the sentiment that’s involved. 

Horizon Workrooms (by Facebook) allows people to take on avatars and enter virtual meetings through a keyboard by pairing their OculusQuest 2 headsets.

NFTs have led consumers to create digital assets out of their everyday life and they are placing a value on these assets - creating a new direct-to-avatar (D2A) business model.

Art and culture could breathe into a revolutionary world with the Metaverse - a world that blends real with their imagination and displays it in transformative virtual environments.  

These developments are already existing while we see the concept of interconnectedness just picking up. As time passes by, we’ll see brands getting bolder with all that they do and offer with this gamut of technologies that the Metaverse has to offer. Right now, the discovery is happening in stores or on Instagram. However, as we advance more into AR and VR-powered experiences, the approach will get more intuitive, intelligent, and engaging - where the business gets serious.

If we go back in history, to the tribe who were the first to try their hands on what we today refer to as the Metaverse, there’s enough to learn and inspire from - the gaming industry. They’ve known for years that while a brick-and-mortar fashion store is important, their digital avatar is equally important if not more or any less. For newbie brands, it wouldn't hurt to be curious, follow the guidelines and experiment a bit. Pick up a roadmap and see what your competitors are up to, plan your entry, and observe and evaluate your way forward. 

Clearly Defining the Objective

The Metaverse isn’t limited to consumer-facing companies though. It’s an all-encompassing phenomenon that will influence everyone - from surgeons to manufacturing and logistics to workrooms. It all depends on you as a brand as to how you chart out your engagement by identifying a few key objectives to start with.  
 
Having an objective is paramount as with time, we are likely to see more insightful use cases. The Metaverse will impact your business and revenue models. Hence, aligning an objective to your shared experience could become a business solution. 

There are a few unknowns of the Metaverse. The cost, the comfort, the privacy, the disparate virtual room’s functionality, and the overall interactive performance and whether or not it can scale. We must expect tech giants like Facebook and the likes to accelerate this debate and hype it further in this decade. 

Hence, the question retail brands should be asking is not when’s the right time to enter the Metaverse, but rather how well are they prepared to unleash a parallel economy?