Metaverse will change the way we interact with others

As a result of their efforts in the metaverse, fashion and retail brands are already creating genuinely exciting experiences for their fans and taking impressive steps into the metaverse. Over 7 million people have visited the store ‘Nikeland’ in the metaverse, and Gucci has developed virtual clothes and accessories for digital avatars.

The metaverse is still searching for the moment when it will be understood and used by the mainstream as the virtual world. Its associated experiences will be understood and used by everyone, but the concept is already offering retailers several business opportunities.

Brands need to get the right technologies in place before they can experiment across virtual worlds. This will allow the brands to discover where they can offer customers the best customer experiences, enabling them to succeed.

Whether it is an up-and-coming fashion show, a novel brand collaboration, or a high-profile fashion event, fashion and retail brands constantly look for new approaches to stay relevant and delight their shoppers.

Luxury retailers could use virtual worlds to give consumers access to runway shows and to browse limited edition clothes that are unavailable in the real world. The metaverse could be the perfect platform for businesses to sell products that are not available in the physical world. An exclusive NFT from Paco Rabanne and Foundation Vasarely is available in Selfridge’s first metaverse store, which was opened as part of Decentraland’s Metaverse Fashion Week in March. The store also accepts crypto payments and allows shoppers to spend cryptocurrency.

Currently, users are required to make blockchain-based payments with digital currencies to access the metaverse, which poses many challenges to user experience. At the moment, this is widely accepted in the metaverse. As a result, they are borderless and do not have to deal with exchange rates or currency conversions, but the process is also unknown and new to most people.

Adding to that, there is also the issue of setting up crypto wallets for storing cryptocurrency and making crypto conversions to be able to use crypto for NFTs as a way of transacting.

As a solution, brands may provide the option for consumers to use credit cards to make metaverse payments, making it easier for consumers to do business in the metaverse and keep costs down.

There is a risk of brands jumping into innovation before they are ready. Much as with the rise of AI and machine learning, brands may be tempted to embrace innovation before they are ready. However, if a brand is open to embracing the metaverse, it must get its strategy right first.

The metaverse can be viewed as a platform for commerce, and how you deliver a great customer experience is not so different from how you do it online or in an app. To tailor and personalize customer experiences, for instance, it is crucial to have access to customer data.

Brands are developing a deeper understanding of what works best in the metaverse. Still, they also need to adopt a testing mindset to test various content, assets, and experiences quickly, learn the most engaging and exciting content for shoppers, and eliminate the ones that aren’t. Retail will not be transformed over time by the metaverse, nor will it be the only channel in which customers can reach out to one another.